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re-Historic America 



BY THE 

MARQUIS DE NADAILLAC 



TRANSLATED BY N. D'ANVERS 



EDITED BY W. H. DALE 



WITH 219 ILLUSTRATIONS 




NEW YORK & LONDON 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
Jlitickerirocker |3ress 
1884 



V 



COPYRIGHT BY 

. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
1884 

1 i\ 

.HI* 



Press of 
G. P. Putnam's Sons 
New York 



NOTE BY THE AMERICAN EDITOR. 



The present translation of the Marquis de Nadaillac's 
V Amerique Prehistorique, published by Masson in 1882, was 
made with the author's sanction. By his permission it has 
been modified and revised to bring it into harmony with the 
results of recent investigation and the conclusions of the 
best authorities on the archaeology of the United States. 

It is proper to state that this has required a revision of 
the chapters relating to the archaeology of North America 
and the addition to them of much new material. For such 
changes and additions the American editor is to be held 
responsible. 

Many quotations have been verified by Mr. J. W. Gibbs, 
and the acknowledgments of the translator are also due for 
assistance rendered in architectural matters by Prof. T. 
Roger Smith of London University, and in other details by 
Dr. Sainsbury and Miss F. E. Judge. 

To the courtesy of the Messrs. Harper & Bros., the pub- 
lishers are indebted for the opportunity of using a number 
of illustrations relating to the archaeology of Peru. These 
originally appeared in Squier's well-known work on Peru, 
which has been cited as an authority on numerous occasions 
by the author of the present work. 



iii 



PREFACE. 



Pre-historic man has for some time excited a justifiable 
interest not only among men of science but among men of 
intelligence everywhere. 

The first revelations in regard to the co-existence of man 
with extinct animals were received not only with surprise 
but with natural incredulity. Soon, however, proofs of such 
weight multiplied, that doubt became no longer reasonable, 
and we are now able to assert with confidence that, at a period 
from which we are separated by many centuries, man inhab- 
ited the earth, already old at the time of his appearance. 
The length of this period can be measured by no chronology, 
no calculation can compute it, history and tradition are si- 
lent with regard to it ; and it is only by the study of works 
which may be almost termed stupendous, and by the most 
careful reasoning that traces of pre-historic man have been 
followed up through an almost fabulous past and some idea 
has been gained of the rude pioneers who were the ances- 
tors of the human race. With some probability Asia has 
been fixed upon as the primaeval cradle of humanity, from 
which by successive migrations, during an incalculable 
period, man spread to the uttermost parts of the Old World. 

At an epoch not far distant, men probably derived from 
the same source, made their appearance in the New World, 
wandering on the shores of either ocean. Like their nomad 
contemporaries of the other hemisphere they knew no shelter 
save that afforded by nature in her forests and rocks. 
Rudely shaped stones served them alike for tools and 
weapons and their social condition was paralleled by that 
known for their European contemporaries under the name 
of the Stone age. In accordance with a universal law of 



vi 



PREFACE. 



Nature now well recognized, men alike in habits, physique, 
and mental culture, though in the midst of most diverse con- 
ditions of fauna, flora, and climate, were traversing the forests 
of India and the frigid regions of the north, chasing the rein- 
deer or the bear on the banks of the Delaware or the Miss- 
issippi as well as along the Thames or the Seine. 

Nor is this all ; the inhabitants of distant continents 
passed through strictly analogous phases of culture. The 
nomads were succeeded by sedentary tribes who settled by 
the banks of rivers or the shores of ocean, wherever the 
bounty of the waters afforded the subsistence. Shell-heaps 
and kitchen middens bear witness to the long duration of 
their sojourn. Centuries passed, new wants were felt, 
aesthetic feeling awoke, and here and there the stimulus to 
progress did not fail. Social life had taken on a communal 
garb and the common needs led to united effort for their 
satisfaction. Mounds, tumuli, pyramids, arose, and earthen 
structures in whose form the savage often embodied the 
animal outlines associated with his myths or ceremonials. 
In other regions, probably later, another form was taken by 
the outward symbols of social structure, resulting in bee- 
hive-like pueblos. Threatened by dangers soon to be ever 
present they sought for refuge in the recesses of the cliffs, 
conquering difficulties of construction which appear almost 
insurmountable to our eyes. Towns and monuments arose 
of which the imposing ruins still bear witness to the skill of 
those whose very existence has been but recently made 
known. 

Although mounds and cliff-houses, ruins and temples, de- 
termine no dates of erection or names of the builders, yet 
through them Ave may become acquainted with the essentials 
of the manners, habits, and mental culture, of the ancient in- 
habitants of America. We are able to conclude that at the 
time of the first European invasion the civilization of the 
Americans, the slow growth of ages, was in some respects 
not inferior to that of their conquerors. 

In " Les premiers homines et les temps pre'liistoriques" I have 



PREFACE. 



Vll 



described the Stone Age of Europe and the early resting- 
places of the ancient inhabitants of the Old World. The 
good- will with which that work was received has led me to 
supplement it by tracing the analogous period in America, 
seeking the first evidences of a culture parallel to our own 
and bringing the recital down to the sixteenth century of our 
era._ 

My task has been facilitated by the numerous investiga- 
tions undertaken in the United States. There, many so- 
cieties devote themselves to the study of aboriginal antiqui- 
ties, museums exist already containing a wealth of material ; 
excavations are carried on with an energy and perseverance 
justly commanding admiration. Success has crowned these 
efforts, every day bringing to light the most remarkable dis- 
coveries, the most unexpected results. 

These researches and discoveries it is my desire to make 
widely known, but, as I have said elsewhere, and now repeat, 
the state of archaeology is such that however great the im- 
portance of the facts revealed by it, we cannot regard our 
present conclusions from them as final. Nothing has been 
more injurious to science that the ephemeral popularity of 
hypotheses which the revelations of a day have sometimes 
overturned. As was lately said by Virchow, " when we 
know as little as we do yet, it behooves us to be modest in 
our theories." 

Our present lack of information, however, is stimulating 
rather than prejudicial to archaeological study. For my part 
I know no grander spectacle than the onward march of 
human progress. Every fact won, every stage accomplished, 
becomes the starting point of fresh acquirement, of further 
progress which will ever be the glorious heritage of future 
generations. A yet more elevating sentiment results from 
these studies which is a profound gratitude toward Him who 
created man, who made him capable of such progress and 
granted him such potentiality of mind. Science in its free- 
dom and its strength cannot disown its author. 

Paris, October-], 1882. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Man and the Mastodon i 

II. The Kitchen-Middens and the Caves . 46 

III. The Mound Builders 80 

IV. Pottery, Weapons, and Ornaments of 

the Mound Builders . . . .133 
V. The Cliff Dwellers and the Inhabi- 
tants of the Pueblos . . . . 198 
VI. The People of Central America . . 260 
VII. The Ruins oe Central America . .317 

VIII. Peru 387 

IX. The Men of America . . . . 476 

X. The Origin of Man in America . .518 

Appendix . . .533 

Index . . . .539 



CHAPTER I. 



MAN AND THE MASTODON. 

THE existence of the American continent was unknown to 
the Egyptians and the Phoenicians, as well as to the Greeks 
and Romans. We find nothing in the writings either of 
historians or of geographers to justify the assertion that the 
ancients even suspected the existence of a vast continent 
beyond the Atlantic, and a few vague statements, a few bold 
guesses, interpreted later with the help of accomplished 
facts, cannot be accepted as evidence. M. De Guignes has 
endeavored to prove that intercourse took place between 
China and America as early as the fifth century of our era 1 ; 
according to legends in which a little truth is mingled with 
much fiction, Northmen landed in New England about A.D. 
iooo ; and in maps dating from the fourteenth and fifteenth 
centuries, continents and islands of uncertain outline are 
for the first time represented beyond the ocean. The 
Eskimo passed freely from one continent to another in the 
circumpolar regions, but they were themselves as entirely 
unknown as the other inhabitants of America. In the course 
of the present work we shall examine into the question of 
the relations which may have existed between the Old World 
and the New, but shall content ourselves at present with 
saying that the first positive information ' about the new 
countries and their mysterious people dates only from the 
fifteenth century. Side by side with the glorious name of 
Christopher Columbus, 2 we must place those of Jacques Car- 

1 These fables arose from early voyages of the Chinese to Korea and Japan, 
exaggerated accounts of which were misunderstood by students of ancient 
Chinese literature. 

2 Christopher Columbus left Palos, near Seville, on the 3d of August, 1492, 
•and on the 14th of the following October landed on the island of Samana. 

1 



2 



PRE-HIS TORIC A ME RICA. 



tier, John and Sebastian Cabot, Amerigo Vespucci, Magellan* 
Pizarro, and especially Fernando Cortes, as the first to 
establish the supremacy of European civilization in the New 
World. 

Cortes disembarked at the mouth of the little river Tabas- 
co, on the shore of the Gulf of Mexico, and fought two 
successive battles with the Indians, 1 who ventured to oppose 
his passage. The second battle, which was bloody and long 
contested, took place on the 18th of March, 15 19. Victory 
remained with the Spaniards, and Cortes erected upon the 
soil of America his great standard of black velvet embroid- 
ered with gold; having in the centre a red cross surrounded 
by blue and white flames, bearing the following inscription 
in Latin : " Friends, let us follow the Cross, and if we have 
faith in that sign we shall conquer." This was Europe's. 
Act of Appropriation ; from that moment her fortunes and 
those of the New World have been indissolubly united. 2 

1 Columbus, imbued with, the ideas of his time, supposed the land he saw 
stretching before him to be the coast of India, hence the name of the West 
Indies, and that of Indians still given to the natives of America, as if posterity- 
had felt it a point of honor to perpetuate the illusion of the great navigator. 

2 Pre-historic America has been discussed by numerous writers. A mere 
list of them would fill a long bibliography : we will only name : Atwater's 
" Description of the Antiquities of Ohio " ; the publications of the Smithsonian 
Institution, including the work of Squier and Davis on "Ancient Monuments 
of the Mississippi Valley " ; the researches of Dr. Chas. Rau, and those of Dall, 
on pre-historic remains in the Aleutian islands ; Squier's " Antiquities of the 
State of New York," and Lapham's " Antiquities of Wisconsin " ; Schoolcraft's 
" Historical and Statistical Information Respecting the Indian Tribes of the 
United States, "in six volumes ; Baldwin's " Ancient America " ; Wilson's" Pre- 
historic Man " ; Waldeck's " Voyage au Yucatan " ; Charnay's " Cites et Ruines 
Americaines," with a preface by Violletle Due; Stephens' " Incidents of Travels 
in Central America," in two volumes ; Prescott's " Conquest of Mexico" and 
" Conquest of Peru " ; Jones' " Antiquities of the Southern Indians " ; Morton's. 
"Crania Americana" ; Nott and Gliddon's "Types of Mankind " ; Foster's 
"Pre-historic Races of the United States " ; Brasseur de Bourbourg's " His- 
toire des Nations Civilisees du Mexique et de 1' Amerique Centrale," in four 
volumes ; Southall's " Recent Origin of Man " ; Short's " North Americans of 
Antiquity"; Tylor's "Researches into the Early History of Mankind"; 
Squier's " Peru " ; his " Incidents of Travel and Exploration in the Land of the 
Incas" ; and the important work of H. H. Bancroft, on "The Native Races, 
of the Pacific States of North America," in five volumes* 



MAN AND THE MASTODON. 



3 



In the sixteenth century America was inhabited from the 
Arctic Ocean to Cape Horn, from the shores of the Atlantic 
to those of the Pacific, by millions of men of types analogous 
to and with characteristics as varied as many of the inhab- 
itants of the Old World. Amongst them were to be found 
numerous shades of complexion, from the ruddy white of 
the inhabitants of the Cordillera of the Andes, of the Amazon 
valley, or of the island of Santa Catherina, to the much 
darker tint of some of the tribes of California and Florida, 
of the natives of the island of St. Vincent, or of the Charruas 
dwelling on the southern banks of the Rio de la Plata. 1 The 
Eskimo of the north were short ; the Patagonians of the 
south were remarkable for their lofty stature. 2 Some Indian 
tribes had slender limbs with small hands and feet ; others 
were robust and stoutly built. Some had round heads, 
whilst in others the dolicho-cephalous 3 form was pronounced. 
Some had an abundant crop of hair, others scarcely any ; 
some shaved their heads, others let their hair grow long. It 
would take a long time to enumerate all the differences of 
type and race met with by Europeans when they first arrived 
on the American continent. The native Americans lived 
among mammalia, birds, fish, and reptiles mostly unknown 
in Europe. In the south the Llama 4 was their chief do- 
mestic animal ; they used it as a beast of burden, ate its 
flesh, clothed themselves with its wool. Oxen, camels, goats, 
horses, and asses were unknown to them. The European 
dog, our faithful companion, also appears to have been a 
stranger to them. 5 His place was very inadequately filled 

1 Nott and Gliddon's " Types of Mankind " ; Broca, Pruner Bey, Bull. Soc. 
Anlh., 1862 ■; Ameghino, " La Antiguedad del Hombre en el Plata," vol. i., 
p. 71. 

2 Topinard, Rev. d' Anth., 1878, p. 511. 

3 From doXlXOb long, and KBcpaXrf head. 

4 The Llama (Auchenia) is a ruminant of the family of the Camelidce. It re- 
sembles the camel in the peculiar structure of its stomach, and is a native of the 
regions on the slopes of the Cordillera of the Andes. The Guanaco and the 
Vicuna are species of the same group. 

5 Certain kinds of dogs were, however, domesticated in America. They 
were called Xulos in Nicaragua, Tzomes in Yucatan, and Techichis in Mexico. 



4 



PRE-HISTORIC A M ERICA . 



by the coyote, 1 or prairie wolf, which they kept in captivity 
and had succeeded in taming to a certain extent. The large 
feline animals were represented by the jaguar, 2 the lynx, 3 
the puma, 4v the habitat of which extended from Canada to 
Patagonia ; and the ocelot, 5 frequenting Mexico and part of 
South America. The bears were represented by the little 
black bear G and by the grizzly bear, 7 both of which differ in 
many important characters from any which could have been 
previously known to the Spaniards. Even the monkeys, so 
numerous in South America, were quite unlike those of the 
Old World. All had long prehensile tails, such as are not 
possessed by European or African monkeys. 

The differences in the flora were not less marked. The 
trees were generally of species foreign to Europe and Asia. 
Maize was the only cereal cultivated in the New World, 
though the so-called "wild rice" was harvested in North 
America. Wheat, rye, barley, oats, millet, and rice were 
unknown to the Indians. On the other hand, they had 
a leguminous plant, the manioc, different from any European 
vegetable, 8 tobacco, 9 tomatoes, and peppers — all valuable 
acquisitions to civilization. 

These were considered to afford very delicate food after having been castrated 
and fattened. 

1 Canis latraus, Baird. In a description of Virginia published in 1649, we 
Tead : " The wolf of Carolina is the dog of the woods. The Indians had no 
other curs before the Christians came amongst them. They are made domestic. 
They go in great droves, in the night to hunt deer, v/hich they do as well as the 
best pack of hounds." 

2 Felis onca, Linnaeus, a native of South America. 

3 Lynx canadensis, Raf . , known also under the name of loup-cervier or wild- 
cat ; its skin formed one of the objects of trade by the Hudson Bay Company. 
The natives are said to eat its flesh, which is white and insipid. 

4 Felis concolor, Illiger, 

5 Felis pardalis, Linnaeus. 

6 Ursns Americanus, native to North America. 

7 Ursns ferox. It could easily drag off a buffalo weighing more than a thou- 
sand pounds. Some twenty years ago this bear was still pretty common in Cal- 
ifornia. The Indians hunted and overcame it with the help of their lassos. 

K The roots of the manioc yield a starch known under the name of tapioca. 
9 It* is said that tobacco was first imported into Europe in 1588 by Sir Walter 
Raleigh. 



MAN AND THE MASTODON. 



5 



The Indians, who were successively conquered by foreign 
invaders, spoke hundreds of different dialects. _ Bancroft 
estimates that there were six hundred between Alaska and 
Panama ; 1 Ameghino 2 speaks of eight hundred in South 
America. Most of these, however, are mere derivatives from 
a single mother tongue like the Aymara and the Guarani. 
We quote these figures for what they are worth. Philology 
has no precise definition of what constitutes a language, and 
any one can add to or deduct from the numbers given 
according to the point of view from which he considers the 
matter. As an illustration of this, it may be mentioned that 
some philologists estimate the languages of North America 
at no less than thirteen hundred, whilst Squier 3 would 
reduce those of both continents to four hundred, 

These dialects present a complete disparity in their vocab- 
ulary side by side with great similarity of structure. 4 " In 

1 " Native Races," vol. III., p. 557. These dialects maybe divided into 
numerous distinct groups, of which four particularly characteristic families may 
be mentioned. 1. The Innuit or Eskimo, which differs strongly from the 
other American languages ; 2. The Tinneh, spoken in the Rocky Mountain 
region, and extending into Alaska, the British possessions, Oregon, California, 
New Mexico, and Texas ; 3. The Aztec or Nahua, which is widely spread 
throughout Central America. The remarkable poems of Nezahualcoyotl, king 
of Tezcuco, are written in this language. Lastly the Maya-Quiche, probably 
the most ancient language of Central America, which predominated in Yucatan, 
Chiapas and Guatemala. The Indians of Yucatan are said to speak it to this 
day, and Sehor Orozco y Berra tells us that all the geographical names of the 
peninsula are of Maya origin (" Geog. de las Lenguas de Mex.," p. 129). 

2 " La Antiguedad del Hombre," vol I., p. 77. Senor Ameghino notes the 
curious fact that amongst certain tribes the women speak a dialect distinct from 
that of the men. It is more likely that the sexes merely express themselves in 
a different manner. 

3 Nott and Gliddon, " Types of Mankind." Squier asserts that one hundred 
and eighty-seven words of these four hundred dialects are . common to foreign 
languages ; one hundred and four occur in Asiatic or Australian, forty-three in 
European, and forty in African languages. This, however, requires further 
confirmation. 

4 Bancroft, vol. III., p. 556. " Other peculiarities common to all American 
languages might be mentioned, such as reduplications, or a repetition of the 
same syllable to express plurals ; the use of frequentatives and duals ; the 
application of gender to the third person of the verb ; the direct conversion of 
nouns, substantive and adjective, into verbs, and their conjugation as such ; 



6 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



America," says Humboldt, 1 " from the country of the Esqui- 
maux to the banks of the Orinoco, and thence to the frozen 
shores of the Straits of Magellan, languages differing entirely 
in their derivation have, if we may use the expression, the 
same physiognomy. Striking analogies in grammatical con. 
struction have been recognized, not only in the more perfect 
languages, such as those of the Incas, the Aymara, the Guarani, 
and the Mexicans, but also in languages which are extremely 
rude. Dialects, the roots of which do not resemble each 
other more than the roots of the Sclavonian and Biscayan, 
show resemblances in structure similar to those which are 
found between the Sanscrit, the Persian, the Greek, and the 
Germanic languages." These languages are polysynthetic 2 
and agglutinative, 3 which generally indicates a rudimentary 
state of culture. They were, however, rich enough to indi- 
cate that there was not a total absence of intellectual devel- 
opment. 4 Their diversity may be accounted for by the con- 
stant crossing of races, migrations, and by the new customs 

peculiar generic distinctions arising from a separation of animate from inani- 
mate beings." 

Quoted by Pritchard, "Natural History of Man," 4th edition, vol. II., 
p. 496. 

2 Gallatin (" Trans. Am. Ethn. Soc. ," vol. I.) defines a polysynthetic language 
as one in which all that modifies the subject or the action, or still more several 
complex ideas having a natural connection with each other, is expressed by a 
single word. The Aztec language is one of the most curious of this kind. 
Take, for instance, the word Amatlacuilolitquitcatlaxlahuilli, which means, 
" Payment received for having been bearer of a paper with writing on it." On 
p. 34 Gallatin gives the longest word in the Cherokee language — Winitawtgegi- 
naliskawlungtanawnelitisesti, which translated into English means : " They will 
by that time have nearly done granting (favors) from a distance to thee and to 
me." 

3 An agglutinative language is one in which new words are formed by joining 
roots together without changing their construction. Ameghino in his " An- 
tiguedad del Hombre," vol. I., p. 7b, says: " casi todas las lenguas Ameri- 
canas son polisilabicas o aglutinativas, es decir que difieren esencialmente del 
grupo de lenguas monosilabicas del Asia oriental y de las lenguas a flexion que 
hablan los pueblos arianos." 

4 We cannot agree with Canon Farrar's opinion, that the richness which has 
been -admired in the aboriginal American languages is only a means of hiding 
their real poverty (" Families of Speech," London, 1873, pp. 124 et seq.). 



MAN AND THE MASTODON. 



7 



and ideas which gradually become introduced even amongst 
the most degraded peoples ; still more by the well-recognized 
instability and mobility of many aboriginal languages. Some 
missionaries say they have found the language of tribes, 
revisited after an absence of ten years, completely changed 
in the interim. 1 

The differences in culture of the American aborigines 
were hardly less remarkable. These need not, however, sur- 
prise us, for at the same period equally radical differences 
existed among European races, — differences, indeed, which 
are still maintained in spite of constant intercommunication. 
Some of the American races were rich, industrious, and 
agricultural ; they had an organized government, towns, laws, 
a religious system, and a powerful priesthood. In reporting 
to the Emperor Charles V. on a reconnoissance made in the 
province of Ouacalco, Cortes stated that the river 2 was 
dotted on either side with numerous large towns. " The 
whole province is level and well fortified, rich in all the pro- 
ductions of the earth." 3 His verdict was equally favorable 
in many other particulars. 

Side by side with these people, who may best be compared 
with the ancient nations of Asia, dwelt other aborigines, pre- 
senting a complete contrast to their neighbors ; sedentary 
tillers of the soil, living in communities, in pueblos resem- 
bling bee-hives in their arrangement ; the Algonquins and 
the Apaches, nomad savages living on grasses and roots 
when the chase and fishing failed them ; the Aleutians, dis- 
figured by hideous tatooing, chasing the sea otter in ingen- 
ious canoes of seal-skin, fabricating delicate tissues out of 
such materials as grass-fibres and feathers, and deriving their 
entire subsistence from the products of the sea. 

Some of these people venerated animals, such as the ser- 
pent and the owl ; in Honduras it was the tiger, in Vancouver 

1 Dr. Carl Guttler, " Naturforschung und Bibel," Freiburg im Breisgau, 1877. 

2 The Coatzacoalcos, a river of the isthmus of Tehuantepec, at the southern 
extremity of the province of Vera Cruz. 

3 Carta Segunda de relacion ap. Lorenzana, Folios 91, 92. Published at 
Mexico, 1700. 



s 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



Island the squirrel, which was connected with religious 
myths. Nor was this the extreme limit of human degradation; 
among certain Californian tribes men and women wandered 
about stark naked, recognizing neither laws, Gods, nor 
chiefs, and owning no shelter but that of some lofty tree, or 
the cave for which they competed with the wild beasts. 

No less striking were the contrasts in South America ; 
side by side with the Peruvians, the richest and most cul- 
tured people of the two Americas, the barbarous Queran- 
dis occupied the territory now forming the Argentine Repub- 
lic. On the 2d of February, 1535, Don Pedro de Mendoza 
landed at the mouth of the Riachuelo, where he founded the 
city of Santissima Trinidad de Buenos Ayres. One of his 
companions has written an account of his expedition, 1 and of 
his long struggle with the savages who had nothing but stone 
weapons, slings with which they flung their do/as, and the 
lassos so formidable in their hands. Even less civilized were 
the vast deserts of the extreme South, overrun as they were 
by savage nomad tribes, disputing with each other and 
with wild beasts for subsistence and shelter. 

Such were the people upon whom the Europeans swept 
down as upon a prey given over to their desires. While 
Cortes was subjugating Central America, and Pizarro was 
overturning the throne of the Incas, parties led by Mendoza, 
Solis, Gaboto, and Cabeca de Vaca ascended the Rio de la 
Plata, the Paraguay, and the Parana, their courage and 
energy winning for Spain the magnificent colonial empire 
which she retained until the nineteenth century. Why was it 
necessary that their glory should have been stained by foul 
cruelty and gloomy fanaticism ? 

The Portuguese 2 were no less active, and the two nations 

1 A German soldier, Ulrich Schmidt, who took part in the expedition, has 
given a very interesting account of it, which was printed at Frankfort-on-the- 
Main in 1567, under the title of " Warhafftige und liebliche Beschreibunge et- 
licher furnemen Indianischen Landtschafften und Indsulen," etc. See also 
Ruy Diaz de Guzman's " Historia del descubrimiento, conquistas y poblacion 
del Rio de la Plata." 

3 For an account of the part taken by the Portuguese in the discovery of the 



MAN AND THE MASTODON. 



9 



disputed for the possession of the New World with ferocious 
zeal. 

On the 9th of March ] 500, Alvarez de Cabral left Portu- 
gal with a fleet of thirteen vessels, to go to the Indies by 
way of the Cape of Good Hope. After passing the Cape de 
Verde islands he steered westward to avoid the calms which 
prevail off the coast of Guinea. Chance favored him be- 
yond his hopes, and six weeks after he sailed he landed at 
Porto Seguro. Brazil was thus discovered, 1 and Cabral had 
the glory of giving to his country a land sixteen times as 
large 2 as France. The country was inhabited by the Tupis, 
of the Guarani race. 3 These people lived in villages con- 
sisting generally of four spacious green arbors enclosing a 
square. They were skilful in the use of the bow, and sub- 
sisted upon the products of the chase. They were entirely 
naked. A strange ornament disfigured the men, who wore 
in the lower lip a plug of wood or jade, 4 the weight of which 
dragged down the lip in a hideous fashion. 

Some years later, Magellan 5 discovered the strait bearina- 

J <_> o 

his name. An Italian named Antonio Pio-afetta, who went 
with him, relates 6 that the great navigator was obliged 

New World, see a capital essay by L. Cordeiro in the first volume of the 
Compte rendu du Congres des Americanisfes, held at Nancy in 1S75. 

1 It is possible that the French had previously touched at several points of 
Brazil. On this point see Bergeron, "Hist, de la Navigation," Paris, 1630, p. 107. 
"Normans and Bretons, however, maintain that they were the first to discover 
these countries, and that they traded from time immemorial with the natives of 
that part of Brazil now known as Porto Real. But there having been no writ- 
ten record of this intercourse it has fallen into complete oblivion. The Portu- 
guese called the country Santa Cruz, after the cross solemnly erected by Cabral ; 
but our French called it Brazil, because that wood grows very plentifully in 
certain parts." See also an essay by M. Gafferel, Congres des Americanistes,. 
Luxembourg, volume I., 1S77. 

2 Brazil has an area of 3.2SS,ooo English square miles. 

3 Dr. Couto de Magalhaes, "O Selvagem," Rio de Janeh-0,1876. The Guaranis 
also peopled the Argentine Republic, Uruguay, and Paraguay. 

4 This custom lingers to the present day among the Botocudos, a savage tribe 
of cannibals in Brazil, and the western Eskimo. 

8 From 1519 to 1522. 

6 " Magellan's First Voyage Round the World," Hakluyt Society's publica- 
tions, p. 50. 



IO 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



to winter in the Bay of San Juliano, where an Indian was 
brought to him who had been surprised by his sailors. This 
man, says our historian, "was so tall that the tallest of us 
only came up to his waist ; however, he was well built ; he 
had a large face, painted red 1 all round, and his eyes also 
were painted yellow around them ; * * * he was 
clothed with the skin of a certain beast ; * * * this 
beast has its head and ears of the size of a mule, and the 
neck and body of the fashion of a camel, the legs of a deer, 
and the tail like that of the horse. * * * This giant 
had his feet covered with the skin of this animal in the form 
of shoes, and he carried in his hand a short and thick bow, 
* * * with a bundle of cane arrows, which were not 
very long, and were feathered like ours, but they had no iron 
at the end, though they had at the end some small white 
and black cut stones." It was a Tehuelche, to whom Ma- 
gellan gave the name of Patagon, because of the size of his 
foot, which was aggravated by the shape of the shoe he wore. 

Before the arrival of the Europeans, Guiana was inhabited 
by a number of petty native tribes, many of them consisting 
of a few families. The more advanced cultivated fields of 
manioc, the roots of which supplied all their needs. Their 
bows and cotton hammocks were their only wealth. Their 
chiefs had little authority, and they were so totally ignorant 
of religion that they could not even be called idolaters. They 
had vague ideas of the existence of a good and an evil 
spirit, and their only dissipation was to intoxicate themselves 
with a drink made from manioc root, which was chewed by 
the old women and then fermented. 2 

But we need not give any further account of these great 
discoveries. We must return to the companions of Cortes 
to tell of the new wonders which awaited them. Even in 
the most remote districts in the primeval forests covering 
Chiapas, Guatemala, Honduras, and Yucatan ; where through 

1 The women also painted their breasts red. Pigafetta's relation is an obvi- 
ously gross exaggeration so far as relates to the stature of the natives. 

a Ternaux Compans, 44 Notice Hist, sur la Guyane Francaise," Paris, 1843, 
P- 35- 



MAN AND THE MASTODON. 



II 



the dense undergrowth a passage had often to be forced, 
axe in hand ; statues, columns, hieroglyphics, unoccupied 
villages, abandoned palaces, and stately ruins rose on every 
side, mute witnesses of past ages and of vanished races. 
Everywhere the conquerors were met by tokens, not only of 
a civilization even more ancient and probably more advanced 
than that of the races they subjugated, but also of struggles 
and wars, those scourges of humanity in every race and every 
clime. 

About three centuries before the arrival of Cortes, the 
Aztecs, who were to be conquered by him, established them- 
selves in Anahuac, 1 where, after terrible struggles and de- 
feats which, for a time, arrested their progress, they founded 
Tenochtitlan, 2 which became their capital. It is almost im- 
possible to fix the exact limits 3 of their empire, which 
stretched from the Atlantic to the Pacific, in the countries 
now forming Mexico and part of the United States. These 
limits were constantly varied by the submission of one 
tribe or the revolt of some other which achieved an ephem- 
eral independence. It is even doubtful whether this em- 
pire was not, like the Aztec, little more than a federation 
of tribes of the Nahuatl race, like the Aztecs themselves, 
among whom the Acolhuas and Tepanecs were the most 
important. 

One thing is certain : the government, though oppressive 
to the governed, was by no means firm. Cortes found some 
faithful friends among discontented tribes and chiefs smart- 
ing under injuries received, and it was due to their help that 
he was able to break the power of Montezuma. 4 These 

1 The name of Anahuac, very incorrectly given to the Mexican empire, was 
a general term used in speaking of any country situated about a lake or a large 
sheet of water. See Brasseur de Bourbourg's " Ruines de Palenque," Chap. 
II., p. 32. 

2 Indian name of the city of Mexico. 

3 Bancroft (vol. II., p. 94), following Clavigero, places their boundaries be- 
tween N. Lat. 18 0 and 21 0 on the Atlantic side, and 14 0 and 19 0 on the 
Pacific- 

* We follow the spelling generally adopted. The real name of the chief con- 
quered by Cortes was Moctheuzema, or Moktezema. 



T2 



P RE-HI S TORIC A M ERICA . 



tribes were probably descended from the Toltecs, 1 who, as 
we shall see, invaded Mexico before the Aztecs. We are 
completely in the dark as to this invasion, which modern 
historians place at about the sixth century of our era. We 
only know that the Toltecs formed a confederacy, and thai 
each tribe yielded allegiance to an independent chief." 
Were these Pelasgians of the New World, as Humboldt 
calls them, the sole builders of the monuments we are about 
to describe, — the first inhabitants of the ruined towns for 
which their descendants have no names ? It is very doubt- 
ful, although we know that this race has influenced more 
than any other the history of Central America, and that the 
language, the religious rites, and the customs of the Tol- 
tecs were met with from the Gila river to the isthmus of 
Panama. But, torn by internecine struggles, decimated 
by pestilence, they could not successfully resist the Chichi- 
mecs. Some withdrew southward and became merged 
with the Mayas, already settled in Yucatan, and of whose 
importance we shall also have to speak presently. The 
Chichimecs are even less known than their rivals, 3 and to 
add to our difficulties their name has now become a gen- 
eral term to designate the unconquered tribes of New Spain. 
Hence, doubtless, the universal idea that they *were wild 
and barbarous. Bancroft thinks they were of the Nahuatl 

1 Sahagun is the first historian who mentions the Toltecs. Their true name 
is still uncertain. That gh'en to them by us is derived from their capital Tol- 
lan or Tula. According to Humboldt, they were the builders of the mysterious 
towns scattered throughout Central America, where their supremacy lasted sev- . 
eral centuries. A very old tradition says that they are descended from seven 
chiefs, who came out of the seven caves to which we shall have occasion to re- 
fer again. 

2 Ixtlilxochitl, " Hist. Chichimeca ;" Kingsborough, " Mex. Ant.," vol. IX. 
This historian was descended through the female line from the ancient kings of 
the country. He was brought up" by theSpaniards, and converted to the Catholic 
faith. He was still living in 1608. 

3 "I will only mention the people denominated Chichimecs, under which 
general name were designated a multitude of tribes inhabiting the mountain^ 
north of the valley of Mexico, all of which were chiefly dependent on the re- 
sult of the chase for their subsistence." — Bancroft, vol. I., p. 617. Becker,, 
" Migrations des Nahuas," Congres des Americanistes, Luxembourg, 1877.. 



MAN AND THE MASTODON. 



13 



race ; others, and amongst them the earliest historians of 
the country, hold a different opinion, maintaining that 
their language was wholly different from that of the 
Nahuas. 1 

All these men, whether Toltecs, Chichimecs, or Aztecs, 
believed that their people came from the North, 3 and mi- 
grated southward, seeking more fertile lands, more genial 
climates, or perhaps driven before a more warlike race ; one 
w r ave of emigration succeeding another. We must, accord- 
ing to this tradition, seek in more northern regions the cradle 
of the Nahuatl race. 

In the Mississippi valley are found mounds occasionally 
of imposing grandeur, huge earth-works, fortifications, vil- 
lage-sites, altars, or tombs, from which are derived the name 
of Mound-Builders, given to those who constructed them ; 
a title very widely adopted in ignorance of facts which the 
most recent investigations are only now beginning to place 
on a sound foundation. 

There is, it is now reasonably certain, no good ground for 
connecting the builders of the earthworks of the Mississippi 
valley with the Central American people who erected the 
remarkable monuments which will hereafter be referred to. 
But, until very recently, it has been a favorite and not un- 
natural hypothesis which served to temporarily appease an 
ignorance, pardonable in itself, but now no longer neces- 
sary. 

Undoubtedly America bears witness to a venerable past ; 
and without admitting the claims of some recent authors 3 
who are of opinion that when Europe was inhabited by 
wandering savages, whose only weapons were roughly hewn 

1 Francesco Pimentel, " Lenguas Indigenas de Mexico," vol. I., p. 154. 

2 The most ancient Mexican traditions speak of a great empire in the North, 
to which the name of Huehue Tlapallan was given. We shall have to recur to 
this question again. 

3 Agassiz and Lyell lead those who insist upon the great antiquity of the 
American continent. The latter believes the Mississippi to have flowed along 
its present bed for more than a hundred thousand years. — ' ' Second Visit to the 
United States," vol. II., p. 188. 



14 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



of stone, America was already peopled by men who built 
cities, raised monuments, and had attained to a high degree 
of culture, we must admit that their civilization and social 
organization can only have become what it was by degrees. 
The wealth which roused the avarice of the Spaniards 
must have accumulated slowly. To erect the monuments of 
Mexico and Peru, the yet more ancient ones of Central 
America, — the singular resemblance of which, in some par- 
ticulars, to the temples and palaces of Egypt, 1 strikes the 
archaeologist, — must have required skilled labor, a numerous 
population, and an established priesthood, such as could have 
developed only during the lapse of centuries. During these 
centuries, the number of which it is impossible to estimate, 
the people into whose origin we are enquiring were preceded 
by others more ignorant and barbarous. It is certain that 
all over the w T orld civilization has increased gradually and 
by slow degrees. This is a fixed law of humanity to which 
there is no exception. The olden time was not without its 
changes, however slowly we may suppose them to have taken 
place. " The oldest monuments of human labor," says 
Lyell (" Travels in North America," vol. II., p. 33), " are things 
of yesterday, in comparison with the effects of physical 
causes which were in operation after the existing continents 
had acquired the leading features of hill and valley, river and 
lake, which now belong to them." To sum up : multitudes 
of races and nations have arisen upon the American conti- 
nent and have disappeared, leaving no trace but ruins, 
mounds, a few wrought stones, or fragments of pottery. 
History can only preserve facts founded on written records, 
or bond fide traditions, and it is from these formulations that 
it builds up chronology and traces the pedigree of nations. 
Here all these fail. Those whom we are disposed to call 
aborigines are perhaps but the conquerors of other races that 
preceded them ; conquerors and conquered are forgotten in 
a common oblivion, and the names of both have passed from 
the memory of man. 



1 For these analogies see " Ensayo de un estudio comparativo entre la Pira- 
mide Egyptias y Mexicanas," Mexico, 1871. 



MAN AND THE MASTODON. 



15 



Who and what, then, were the first inhabitants of 
America? Whence did they come? To what immigra- 
tion was their arrival due ? By what disasters were they 
destroyed ? By what routes did they reach these unknown 
lands ? Must we admit different centres of creation ? 
and were the primeval Americans born on American soil ? 
Could evolution and natural selection, those principles 
so fully accepted by the modern school, have produced 
on the shores of the Atlantic and the Pacific a type of man 
resembling the European and the Asiatic, alike in the struc- 
ture of his frame and in his intellectual development ? Vast 
and formidable are the problems involved in these ques- 
tions, for they affect at once the past and the future of the 
human race. We are, however, already in a position to 
assert that the earliest vestiges of man in America and 
in Europe resemble each other exactly, and by no means the 
least extraordinary part of the case is that in the New,, 
as in the Old World, men began the struggle for existence, 
with almost identical means. 

One fact now is incontestably secured to science : Man ex- 
isted in the Old World in the Quaternary period. He was 
the contemporary, and often the victim, of large animals, 
the great strength of which can be estimated from the skele- 
tons preserved in our museums. Our early ancestors had to 
struggle with the bears and lions of the caves, with the ter- 
rible Machairodus with tusks as sharp as the blade of a 
dagger, with the Mammoth, and the Rhinoceros tichorinus ; 
perhaps, also, with the yet more ancient ElcpJias antiquus 
and Rliinoceros etruscus. The first Americans too were con- 
temporary w T ith gigantic animals which, like their con- 
querors of Europe, have passed away never to return. 
They had to contend with the Mastodon, the Megatherium, 
(fig. 1), the Mylodon (fig. 2), the Megalonyx, the elephant, 1 
with a jaguar larger than that of the present day, and a 
bear more formidable than that of the caves. 2 Like our 

1 Elepkas Colombi (Owen). Found in both Americas, but it disappeared 
from the North sooner than from the South. 
3 Amongst fossil species we must mention the Equidae, of which numerous 



i6 



P RE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



forefathers they had to attack and overcome them with stone 
hatchets, obsidian knives, and all the wretched weapons the 
importance of which we have been so long in recognizing in 
America as in Europe. By the inevitable law of progress, 
intelligence prevailed over brute force ; the animal, in spite 
of its powerful weapons of offence and defence, was van- 
quished in a struggle in which every thing seemed to be in 
its favor ; and man, weak and naked though he was, lived on 
and perpetuated his race. 




Fig. i. — The Megatherium. 



Primeval man had not only to contend with pachyderma- 
tous 1 and edentate 2 animals: the period during which 
he lived was marked by floods, of which man still retains 
traditions. " If I may judge " says the Abbe Brasseur de 
Bourbourg, 3 " from allusions in the documents that I have 
been fortunate enough to collect, there were in these 

varieties occur from the United States to the La Plata. Recently the hones of 
a horse have been found in Nebraska which differed little from our own 
Equus Cabalhis. Of these equine forms we may nanie the Hipparion, 
Anchitheriiun, Protohippus, Orohippus, etc., which appear to have been 
the ancestors of the modern horse. Gaudry, " Les Enchainements du Monde 
Animal." Ameghino in "La Antiguedad del Hombre," vol. I., p. 195, con- 
cludes from this consecutive series that the horse is of American origin. 

1 From the Greek na^vdEpjAO^ ; or, thick-skinned. 

12 From the Latin, Edentaius ; or, toothless. 

3 Arch, de la Com. Scientifique du Mcxiquc, vol. I., p. 95. 



MAN AND THE MASTODON. 



regions, at that remote date, convulsions of nature, deluges, 
terrible inundations, followed by the upheaval of mountains, 
accompanied by volcanic eruptions. These traditions, 
traces of which are also met with in Mexico, Central Ameri- 
ca, Peru, and Bolivia, point to the conclusion that man ex- 
isted in these various countries at the time of the upheaval 
of the Cordilleras, and that the memory of that upheaval 
has been preserved." 1 Amongst these changes must doubt- 




Fig. 2.— The Mylodon. 

less be included the glacial epoch which played so important 
a part in North America, and of which such striking traces 
are met with over an extensive region. These traces are 
rocks striated or moutonnees (rounded like a sheep's back) by 
the friction of glaciers, moraines, drift gravels, terraces, and 
huge erratic blocks which were carried by the ice. In New 
England glacial striae have been met with at a height of 

1 It is hardly necessary to observe that this remark is one of many in the 
writings of- the learned but credulous author, which testify more to the strength 
of his enthusiasm than to the coolness of his judgment. 



i8 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



3,000 feet; in Ohio, the loftiest reach 1,400 feet; while 
those in Iowa, Michigan, and Wisconsin attain a height of 
about 1,200 feet above the sea-level. 1 In California, a large 
area bears witness to the action of glaciers which came down 
from the Sierra Nevada ; while even in the forests of Brazil, 
in the countries watered by the Amazon, as well as on the 
vast savannahs of the Meta and the Apure are found erratic 
blocks of conical form, which some observers suppose to 
have been brought down by great glaciers from the Andes. 2 
Agassiz 3 tells of similar phenomena in the very heart of 
the tropics, in the valleys of the Amazon and the Rio de la 
Plata, and he considered them to be so numerous that he 
could not but conclude that they extend all over the Ameri- 
can continent. 

Professor Cook, State Geologist of New Jersey, has made a 
map of the glaciers of New Jersey. A huge glacier travelled 
slowly from north to south, grinding, scratching, and pol- 
ishing all in its path, tearing from the rocks it came across 
blocks weighing some twenty tons, which it deposited in a 
terminal moraine as eternal witnesses of its passage. This 
moraine can still be seen as a vast accumulation of broken 
rock, gravel, and clay, extending from the Raritan to the 
Delaware. 

These periods of glaciation seem to have been intermit- 
tent or perhaps recurrent. Sutton describes two wholly dis- 
tinct deposits in Kentucky. 4 According to him, one of those 
deposits is of earlier date than the formation of the Ohio 
valley, and the second was not made until after the river 
had hollowed out its present bed. A few years ago, Profes- 
sor Newberry announced his discovery, on the very banks of 
the Ohio, of a " Forest Bed " containing the bones of the 

1 Col. Whittlesey, Proc. Am. Assoc. for the Advancement of Science, Buf- 
falo, 1866. 

2 Bull. Soc. de Ge'og., April, 1880. 

3 " Journey in Brazil." Other geologists, after more careful study, are dis- 
posed to doubt the glacial origin of the deposits in Brazil which so much re- 
semble the drift. 

4 Proc. Am. Assoc. for the Advancement of Science, Buffalo, 1866. 



MAN AND THE MASTODON. 



I 9 



mastodon, the mammoth, and of a large beaver-like animal 1 
intercalated between two beds of clay, the glacial origin of 
which appeared to him beyond a doubt. Unequivocal traces 
of two periods had already been observed near Lake Supe- 
rior. It is easy to distinguish traces of the one from those 
of the other ; during the first the glaciers drifted from the 
northeast to the southwest ; during the second, from the 
north to the south. During the period intervening between 
the two, North America, especially those districts forming 
the state of Ohio, was covered with magnificent forests, 
where mastodons and megatheria found alike a safe retreat 
and the abundant food they required, as proved beyond a 
doubt by the remains of their bones mixed with those of 
huge plants. 2 Lastly the Geological Survey of Canada 3 has 
in its turn quite recently authenticated two glacial periods : 
the first and most terrible must have coincided with a gen- 
eral invasion of the ice sheet ; the other with a subsequent 
development of merely local glaciers. 

From what remote period does this glaciation date ? It is 
difficult for the human imagination to grasp its causes or its 
duration ; history and tradition are alike silent about them ; 
we only know that, as soon as it came to an end, inundations 
characterized by violent torrents achieved the modification 
of the valleys of to-day, and gave to the river system of 
America the physical configuration which since then has been 
but little changed. 

Man lived through these convulsions 4 ; he survived the 
rigors of the cold ; he survived the floods, as the recent dis- 
coveries of Dr. Abbott 5 in the glacial deposits of the Dela- 

^astoroides Ohioensis, Foster. 

3 American Journal of Science, vol. V., p. 240. 

3 Geological Survey of Canada, " Report of Progress for 1877-8." 

4 " I see no reason to doubt," says Putnam, " the general conclusion in re- 
gard to the existence of man in glacial times, on the Atlantic coast of North 
America." 

5 " Primitive Industry," Salem, Mass., 1881. " Palaeolithic Implements from 
the Drift in the Valley of the Delaware River, near Trenton, New Jersey." 
" Report Peabody Museum," 1876 and 1878. Th. Belt : " Discovery of Stone 
Instruments in the Glacial Drift in North America." London, 1878. 



20 



PRE-HIS TORIC A M ERICA . 



ware, 1 near Trenton, N. J., seem to prove beyond a doubt. 
In the post-tertiary alluvial deposits, consisting of beds of 
sand and gravel, at a depth varying from five to twenty feet, 
Abbott found a considerable number of implements evidently 
fashioned by the hand of man (figs. 3, 4, 5), and greatly re- 
sembling the palaeolithic implements of Europe, especially 
the most ancient of all, those of St. Acheul, or of Chelles. 




Fig. 3. — Stone implement from Fig. 4. — Scraper found in the Dela- 
the Delaware valley. ware valley. 

The objects are of very hard trap, 2 an argillaceous rock of 
volcanic origin. Owing to the difficulty of working it is due 

1 The Delaware flows into the Atlantic after a course of three hundred and 
fifty miles. It forms the boundary between Pennsylvania and New Jersey. 
Some geologists think that part of the American continent was submerged dur- 
ing the glacial epoch. At that time the Delaware certainly flowed into the 
sea near Trenton, which is now 130 miles inland. 

" Why should this recently displaced material only yield the rudest forms of 
chipped stone implements, when the surface is literally covered in some places 
with ordinary Indian relics, not a specimen of which has as yet occurred in this 
gravel?" Abbott, " Report Peabody Museum," 1876, p. 35. 

- The deposit of trap nearest to Trenton is thirty miles farther north. 



MAN AND THE MASTODON. 



21 



the fact that the secondary chipping is not so perfect as, for 
instance, it is in the flint axes of the valley of the Somme. 1 
They occur in the midst of boulders, some of them twenty 
feet in diameter, and of rocks striated and polished by the 
action of ice, or which have been swept along by torrents of 
water. One of the implements has scratches exactly similar 
to those of the stones amongst which it was found. This is 
too important a fact to be omitted. 




Fig. 5. — Stone weapon from the Delaware valley. 

The Trenton discovery is not an isolated one. Dr. Abbott 
found other objects, on which the work of human hands is 
no less evident, in different parts of New Jersey, and he is 
convinced, that a search made on scientific principles would 
yield similar results in all the valleys of this state. From 
the islands of the Susquehanna have been obtained imple- 
ments exactly resembling the rudest forms of Scandinavian 

1 H. W. Haynes : " The Argillite Implements Found in the Gravels of 
Delaware River." — Proc. Boston Society of Nat. Hist., Jan., 1881. 



22 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



origin. 1 Like those of Trenton, they were made by men 
who probably lived during the glacial epoch, and certainly 
preceded by many centuries those inhabiting North America 
on the arrival of the Spaniards. 2 

A member of the Commission d'Exploration du Mexique, 
M. Guillemin Tarayre, speaks of the occurrence of worked 
stones in the post-tertiary beds. He had not time to con- 
tinue his researches, but late discoveries seem to confirm his 
report. A hatchet has been found in the Rio Juchipila, near 
the old town of Teul ; in the Guanajuato, a spear point of 




Fig. 6. — Hatchet from the alluvial deposits of the Rio Juchipila. 



the palaeolithic type ; in another place an axe like those of 
St. Acheul, and a scraper which is a fac-simile of those 
abounding in European museums, (figs. 6, 7, and 8). The 
scraper (fig. 8) was found a short distance from Mexico, in 
the undisturbed post-tertiary deposits, and the numerous 
remains of the Elephas Colombi, mixed with productions 

1 Letter of Prof. Haldeman of the 27th Sept., 1877. "Report Peabody 
Museum," 1878, p. 255. We must also mention a stone hammer found at 
Pemberton, New Jersey (fig. 9), on which some have supposed they recog- 
nized the Swastika, that sacred sign of the Aryans which occurs amongst the 
Hindoos, Persians, Trojans, Pelasgians, Celts, and Germanic races. On the 
Pemberton hammer it is roughly enough executed, even if the intent of the 
artist was to reproduce it, which there is no reason to believe. 

2 Nature, 1878, part I., p. 262 ; Ameghino, vol. I,, p. 148. 



MAN AND THE MASTODON. 



2 3 



of man, indicate that man and this proboscidian were con- 
temporaries. 

Hewn stone implements, the work of their hands, are not 
the only relics of the early inhabitants of America. In 
many places human bones have been found, associated with 
numerous fragments of extinct animals. 1 Lund was one of 




Fig. 7. — A lance head found Fig. 8. — Stone scraper from a valley 

near Guanajuato. near Mexico. 



the first 2 to call attention to them. In a cave excavated in 

J The earliest examinations were very superficial and the mistakes made 
are incredible. I cannot give a better proof of this than by mentioning the 
acceptance as human remains by the Royal Society of London, a century and 
a half ago, of the bones of a mastodon found near Albany, New York. 4 ' Philos. 
Transactions," vol. XXIX., 1714. 

2 " On the Occurrence of Fossil Human Bones in South America." Nott 
and Gliddon, "Types of Mankind," p. 350. Lacerda and Peixotto, " Con- 
tributes aoEstudo Anthropologico das Racaslndigenas do Brazil." — Archivos 
do Museo National, Rio de Janeiro, 1876. 



24 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



the limestone rocks on the borders of the little lake known 
as the LagoadoSumidouro, in the province of Minas Geraes, 
Brazil, 1 he dug out the bones of more than thirty individuals, 
of both sexes and every age, from those of an infant to those 
of a decrepit old man. 

Some skulls were found among these remains, remarkable 
for their pyramidal form and the narrowness of their fore- 
heads. Lund, writing a few years later, speaks 2 of some 
lower jaws which had not only lost all their teeth, but were 
so much worn that they looked like a bony plate but a few 




F1G.9. — Stone hammer from Pemberton, New Jersey. 

lines in thickness. Several skulls had holes in them, all of 
the same size, of a regular and oblong shape. These were 
probably inflicted with stone weapons, and were wounds of 
so serious a nature that the injured cannot have long sur- 
vived them. 

The skeletons, 3 were mixed together in such great confu- 

1 This cave is three leagues from Santa Lucia, between the Las Velhas and 
Paraopeba rivers. 

2 Letter from Lund to Rafn, dated from Lagoa Santa, 28th of March 1844 ; 
Mdm. Soc. Roy. des Antiquaires de Nord, 1845, p. 49. Cartailhac, " Materiaux 
pour 1' histoire de 1' homme," January, 1882. 

3 The word skeleton is perhaps inappropriate ; most of the skulls being piled 
up apart, whilst another heap was made of small bones, such as those of the 
fingers and toes, the wrist or ankle. — Letter from Lund quoted above. 



MAN AND THE MASTODON. 



25 



sion as to forbid the idea of their having been buried, and 
were lying upon the red earth, the original soil of the cave. 
They were imbedded in hard clay with calcareous incrusta- 
tions, and covered with large blocks of stone, which had 
fallen on them from the walls or roof of the cave. 

Mixed up promiscuously with the human remains were 
found those of several animals, chiefly feline 1 and cervine, 2 
still extant in the same region, together with others belonging 
to species which have now migrated or become extinct. 
Amongst the last we may name a monkey, (Callitiirix 
primcevus), a rodent of the size of the tapir, (Hydro cheer us 
sulcidens), a peccary (Dicotyles) twice as large as the living 
species, a horse very similar to our own, a large cat bigger 
than the jaguar {Felis protopantlier), a llama (Aucheniei), a 
Megatherium (Acelidotherium, Owen), and several others, 
such as CJilamydotJierium Humboldtii, an edentate of the size 
of the tapir, and the Plat y onyx of Lund. 

The chemical constituents of the human bones are the 
same as those of the animals with which they were associ- 
ated, whether in the soil which has remained loose or in that 
which calcareous infiltration has converted into a breccia of 
great hardness. 3 Doubtless these men and animals lived 
together and perished together, common victims of catastro- 
phes, the time and cause of which are alike unknown. 

These were the results of Lund's first efforts. 4 Pursuing 
his researches in the province of Minas Geraes, where he had 
the perseverance and energy, in spite of constant difficulties, 
to search more than a thousand caves, he met with human 
bones again amongst important animal remains, but only in 
six of all the caves examined. By prolonged and careful 
work he succeeded in gathering complete specimens of forty- 
four species now extinct, including several monkeys, some 
hoplophori, 5 which were as large as our oxen, and the Smilo- 

1 The Puma {Felis concolor), the Ocelot, {Felis parda lis). 

3 Cervus rufus and C. simplicornis. Dasypus longicandis and D. mirus. 
8 De Quatrefages Congres Anthrop. de Moscou, 1879. p. 6. 

4 Lund devoted forty-eight years of his life to the study of the fossil fauna of 
Brazil. 

5 H. euphraius, H Selloyi, H. minor; the last much smaller than its con- 



26 



P RE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



don, a large feline animal akin to the Machairodus or sabre- 
toothed tiger, which inhabited Europe in post-tertiary times. 

Lund claims the presence of man on the American conti- 
nent from very remote antiquity, telling us 1 that it dated 
in South America not only earlier than the discovery of that 
part of the world by Europeans, but far back in historic 
times, — perhaps even farther than that, in geological times, — 
as several species of animals seem to have disappeared from 
the fauna since the appearance of man in the Western Hemi- 
sphere. The learned Dane did not arrive at this conclusion 
without much hesitation, which is reflected in his writings. 
Indeed, at first, after his remarkable discoveries, he dated 
the bones of the Lagoa Santa within historic times. 2 

M. Gaudry accepts without hesitation Lund's final con- 
clusions. 3 He thinks, however, that a distinction must be 
recognized between two post-tertiary deposits in the Sumi- 
douro cave. The first and thickest is characterized by the 
occurrence of the bones of the extinct animals, such as the 
Platyonyx and the Chlamydotherium, and must correspond 
with the age of the Mammoth in Europe and North America; 
the second stratum is characterized by the occurrence of more 
recent species, and would be represented by the Reindeer 
period of Europe. It is with the latter that the human 
bones must be connected. The only proofs, therefore, that 
we have of the existence of man in Brazil during the post- 
tertiary period are of more recent date than the traces of 
pre-historic man in Europe ; but we must hasten to add that 
this conclusion may easily be modified by later discoveries 

geners. Pictet places the hoplopliori with the glyptodonts amongst the Eden- 
tates (" Palaeontology," vol. I., p. 273), but there is nothing to prove, as has 
been claimed, that the Hoplophorus had a cuirass like that of the Glyptodon. 

1 Letter to Rafn, p. 5. 

2 " In my opinion," said M. De Quatrefages, at Moscow, " the honor is in- 
contestably due to Lund of having discovered fossil man on the American con- 
tinent, and of having proved his discovery at a time when the existence of that 
man was considered more than doubtful by the most competent European 
authorities." 

* His letter was quoted by M. De Quatrefages : Congr. Anthrop. de Mos- 
cou, 1879. 



MAN AND THE MASTODON. 



27 



In the French colony of Guiana, man existed when a 
large portion of the country was submerged in consequence 
of a subsidence of the soil. Traces of his occupation can be 
made out, and polished stone hatchets have been found on 
the banks of the Maroni, Sinnamari, Cayenne, and Aprou- 
ague rivers. 1 Strobel has recently described 2 earthenware 
vessels of the most primitive construction, and chalcedony 
arrow-heads from the banks of the La Plata, which appear 
to have belonged to the earliest inhabitants of that region ; 
and the paraderos 3 of Patagonia have yielded many trian- 
gular arrow-points, some resembling European, others Peru- 
vian types 4 (fig. 10). Under very different biological and 




Fig. 10. — Arrow-point from Patagonia. 

climatic conditions, pre-historic man has produced objects 
exactly similar. We shall often recur to this singular fact, 
which is in full accord with modern research in other 
sciences as well as archaeology. 

We must enumerate the most important of these recent 

1 Maurel, Bull. Soc. Anthr., April, 1878. 

2 " Materiali di Paleontologia comparata, racolti in Sud-America." Parma, 
1868. 

3 The word paraderos comes from J>arar, to sojourn. The paraderos are 
supposed to occupy the sites of ancient habitations, on account of the numerous 
fragments of burnt earth strewn about them, which seem to have been used for 
hearths. 

4 Moreno : " Les Paraderos preh. de la Patagonie," Rev. d' Anthr., 1874. 



28 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



discoveries. Several years ago Seguin collected on the 
borders of the Rio Carcarana (in the province of Buenos 
Ayres) numerous bones of extinct animals, 1 including those 
of a bear larger than the cave bear, 2 a horse, the mastodon, 
and the megatherium. With these remains lay human 
bones, such as fragments of skulls, jaw-bones, vertebrae, ribs, 
long bones, belonging to at least four different individuals. 
The material in which they were imbedded resembled in 
every respect that containing the bones of animals, and 
there could be no serious doubt as to their being contempo- 




Fig. ii. — Arrow-points in the Ameghino collection. 



raneous. This was not, however, the case with four imple- 
ments of hewn stone 3 of the neolithic type ; they were, it is 
true, found in the same formation, but not in the same 
stratum, so that with regard to them certain reservations 
must be made. 4 

We will now speak of another explorer. Ameghino 5 tells 

1 Gervais, Journal de Zodlogie, vol. II., 1872. The mammals of which Se'- 
guin found remains, are the Arctotherium Bonoeriensis, the Hydrochcsrus 
magnus, the Mastodon, the Megatherium Americanus,\\\z Lestodon trigonidens, 
the Euryurits rudis, and a horse of uncertain species (Ameghino, "La Anti- 
guedad del Ilombre en el Plata," vol. II., p. 526). 

2 Ursus spelams : its bones occur in great numbers in all the post-tertiary 
strata of Europe. 

3 Three are of quartzite, one of chalcedony. 

4 Some of these bones and of the hewn flints collected by Seguin were exhib- 
ited at the Exposition of 1867. They are now in the Paris Museum. 

■ 6 Letter of October 31, 1875, in the Journal de Zodlogie, vol. IV. ; " L'Homme 
preh. dans la Plata" (Rev. d' Aitthr., 1 8 79-1 8 80) ; "La Antiguedad del 
Hombre en el Plata," 2 vols., 8vo, Paris, 1881. 



MAN AND THE MASTODON. 



2 9 



us that on the banks of the little stream of Frias near Mer- 
cedes, twenty leagues from Buenos Ayres, he met with a 
number of human fossils, mixed with quantities of charcoal, 
pottery, burnt and scratched bones, arrow-heads, chisels, 
and stone knives (fig. 11), together with a number of the 
bones of extinct animals 1 on which were marks of chopping 
evidently done by the hand of man, pointed bones, knives, 
and bone-polishers. Afterward Ameghino discovered the 
actual dwelling of this early American, and his singular 
choice was the carapax of a gigantic armadillo scientifically 
known as the glyptodon. 2 All around the shell lay charcoal, 




Fig. 12.— The Glyptodon. 



ashes, burnt and split bones, and a few flints. The reddish 
earth of the original soil was consolidated. Below this 
level exploration revealed a stone implement, long bones of 

1 In the remarkable work to which we refer our readers, Ameghino gives 
complete details on the flora and fauna of the pampas. A table in vol. II. 
shows the tertiary fauna of Patagonia, the fauna of the upper and lower pam- 
pas, of the lacustrine pampas, of recent alluvial deposits, and lastly of the fauna 
of the time of the Spanish conquest. By the help of this table it is easy to 
form an idea of the range in time of each of the different species. The mam- 
mals, bones of which were found by Ameghino mixed with those of man, are : 
The Cams cultridens, the Hydrochcerus sulcidens, the Reithrodon, the Toxodon 
Platensis,, an Equus, an Auchenia and a Cervus of undetermined species, the 
Mylodon robustus, the Panochcetus iuberctilatus, the Glyptodon reticulalus, and 
the G. typus ("Ant. del Hombre," vol. II., chs. X., XL, XIV., and XV.). 

2 Pictet places this animal in the Armadillo family amongst the Edentates. 
Burmeister (Ann. de Museo Publico de Buenos Ayres) mentions a glyptodon of 
which the shell measured five and a half feet long by about four feet wide and 
three high. 



30 



PRE-HIS TOPIC A MERICA . 



the deer and llama, some split and bearing evident traces of 
human workmanship, and teeth of the mylodon and toxo- 
don, also worked. Still later the discovery of another glyp- 
todon shell under nearly similar conditions strengthened 
Ameghino's convictions. 1 In the midst of the pampas, 
those vast plains without a tree or rock behind which man 
might shelter himself from attack by the gigantic animals 
wandering about, his mother-wit did not desert him. Dig- 
ging a hole in the ground, he roofed it with the shell of a 
vanquished glyptodon, thus forming a cave-like retreat. 

Ameghino's discoveries led to long discussions. Bur- 
meister 2 rejected the theory of the contemporaneity of the 
men and mammals whose bones were found together. The 
Argentine Scientific Society even refused to listen to the 
reading of a memoir upon the subject. We cannot accept 
these decisions. Ameghino asserts that the human bones 
were mixed with those of the animals 3 and that both were 
covered with dendritic deposits of the oxides of iron and 
manganese derived from the soil. The same dendrites are 
met with in the striae, which is positive proof that these 
grooves and scratches, which must have been the work of 
man, were of earlier date than the interment of the bones. 
Other bones had been split open to get out the marrow, 
pointed in the shape of an arrow or dagger, and blackened 
by fire. The charcoal and burnt earth 4 were certain indi- 

1 "El Hombre seguramente habitaba las corazas de los Glyptodon, pero no 
siempre las colocaba en la posicion que acabo de indicar " (" La Antiguedad 
del Hombre," vol. II., p. 532). 

3 Los caballos fossiles de la pampa Argentina. Later Burmeister was less- 
positive : " No parece,"he says, " que sean contemporaneos de los animates de 
la epoca inferior porque carecemos de pruebas para determinar con seguridad 
que hayan vivido simultaneamente," — " Descripcion fisica de la Republica Ar- 
gentina." 

3 Ameghino (Vol. II., p. 424) gives a list of the animals to which the striated 
bones belonged. 

4 " En algunos puntos se encuentra una gran cantidad de fragmentos in- 
formes de tierra cocido de color ladrilloso. Que es lo que indican ? Son los 
productos de los primeros ensayos en el arte ceramico 6 son el simple resultado 
de la accion del fuego de un fogon enciditto por el hombre de la epoca del 
Glyptodon." — " Ameghino." Vol. I., p. 427. 



MAN AND THE MASTODON. 



31 



cations of the hearths of men. The stones could 
have been fashioned only by the hand of man.. 
We think, therefore, with Ameghino, that man lived in 
South America with animals long since extinct ; that he 
chased the deer, the llamas, and several little rodents whose 
bones occur with his own ; that he was not afraid to at- 
tack the glyptodon, toxodon, 1 the megatherium, and the 
mastodon. Their flesh served for his food, their skins for 
his garments, and their bones became his implements and 
weapons, in lieu of silicious and quartzite stones, which 
often were only to be obtained from a distance. All this 
seems to us to be absolutely proved. 2 

There remains one important question to be solved. At 
what period were the pampas formed ? To what geological 
time must we assign the upper stratum where the human 
bones were found? Darwin considers it of recent, Burmeis- 
ter of Quaternary, and Bravard and Ameghino of Pliocene 
formation. Opinions differ no less as to the mode of its for- 
mation. D'Orbigny says that, in Tertiary times, the sea 
covered a great part of the Argentine territory ; the up- 
heaval of the Andes caused great changes in the adjacent 
region, and, incidentally, the formation of the pampean de- 
posits of argillaceous sand. Darwin also admits this hy- 
pothesis. 3 Lund thinks the pampas are alluvial deposits, 
brought by a great flood which covered the whole of South 
America. Bravard sees in them the result of volcanic cin- 
ders, sand, and dust drifted by strong winds ; other geolo- 
gists think they are the sediment brought down in the time 
of great floods by the countless streams flowing from the 
Andes. Dr. Burmeister speaks of the action of ice. To 

1 Toxodon platensis, Owen. The first was discovered on the borders of the 
Rio Negro, 120 miles northwest of Montevideo ; the length of its head was 
two feet four inches. Later, several species have been recognized. 

2 Ameghino's has not remained the only discovery. We shall mention an- 
other later (Chap. IX.). 

3 It is remarkable that the deposits of the pampas contain no marine shells. 
This is a serious objection to the exclusive system advocated by Darwin and 
D'Orbigny. 



3- 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



him the pampean deposits appear to be some pre-glacial and 
others post-glacial, each characterized by a different fauna ; 
but the most recent researches justly reject the idea of sud- 
den and complete changes with the fauna appearing and dis- 
appearing abruptly. No fauna has thus appeared and disap- 
peared. Moreover, Ameghino calls our attention to great 
mammals, such as the smilodon, the Felts longifrons, the 
toxodon, and the mastodon in successive strata, the two 
last named even occurring in comparatively recent times. 
The hoplophorus, the megatherium, and the mylodon, es- 
pecially classed by Burmeister among pre-glacial animals, 
occur in the upper strata of the pampas. On the other 
hand the species quoted as characteristic of the post-glacial 
epoch are met with in every stratum. Without prolonging 
the discussion we will add that the formation of the pampas 
certainly took a long time, " largos y largos siglos," says 
Ameghino ; that they are the result of many and varied 
causes, and that all those which we have just enumerated, 
with perhaps others also, undoubtedly contributed to their 
production. If it is difficult, in the present state of knowl- 
edge, to assign to each of these causes its exact role, it is 
still more impossible to place them in a definite epoch, and 
the difficulties are greatly increased by the fact that geologi- 
cal periods are not synchronous in Europe and America, and 
if ever they are assimilated more perfectly than now, it will 
only be after long and patient researches. 

We must not omit to mention a skull discovered by Dr. 
Moreno, in 1874, on the banks of the Rio Negro, Patagonia, 
at a depth of thirteen feet, in a bed of gravel and yellow 
sand, which he considers 1 to be of a contemporaneous for- 
mation with the subsoil of the pampas. Although there 
were no bones w T ith this skull to aid in the exact determi- 
nation of its age, Moreno thinks it very ancient, and calls 
attention to its remarkable artificial deformation, resembling 
that which has always prevailed amongst the Aymaras, and 
is also met with among tribes more than six hundred leagues 



1 Bull. Soc. Anthr., 1880, p. 490. 



MAN AND 7 "HE MASTODON. 



33 



from them. Broca has also pointed out the traces left on 
the forehead by periostitis, and he does not hesitate to at- 
tribute this scar to a syphilitic disease. This is a very in- 
teresting pathological fact. 

Moreno had previously collected many human bones in 
the ancient cemeteries of Patagonia. That they are very 
ancient no one can doubt, but to fix their real age with any 
certainty is very difficult. The skeletons were generally 
seated, with the face turned outward, the knees drawn up to 
the breast, one foot resting on the other, and the hands 
crossed on the shins. This is much the same position as 
that of Peruvian and Aleutian mummies. With the skele- 
tons were found arrow-points of many different shapes and 
of many kinds of stone, little flint knives, fragments of pot- 
tery ornamented with dots, straight, waving, and zig-zag 
lines; bowls of sandstone, diorite, or porphyry; stone mor- 
tars — one of them fourteen inches in diameter ; shells of 
different kinds ; and, lastly, the bones of the guanaco and 
«ostrich split lengthwise. Some of the human bones were dyed 
red. As some Indians were still in the habit during the last 
century of painting their faces red before starting on an expe- 
dition, it is supposed that these bones belonged to warriors 
killed in battle. It is useful to note this fact, but we must 
add that the funeral rites to which the remains bear witness 
would not date back to the Quaternary period, nor have 
been practised by the contemporaries of the mylodon or 
glyptodon. 

The discoveries in North America would be no less curi- 
ous, if we could but accept them with more confidence. 
This reservation made, we must mention them, if only to 
show that sometimes even masters in science allow them- 
selves to be carried away by their imaginations, and even 
more by pre-conceived ideas. In 1848, Count F. de Pour- 
tales found some human jaws with the teeth still in them, 
and part of the bones of a human foot, in a conglomerate 
made up of fragments of coral or broken shells and imbedded 
in the perpendicular rocks overhanging Lake Monroe, 



34 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



Florida, about ten miles from the coast. Agassiz 1 informed 
the scientific world of the fact, and considering that the land 
here gains on the sea at the rate of about a foot in a cen- 
tury, he allowed for the coral-bank an age of 13,300 years, and 
for the bones imbedded in it 10,000 years. Lyell, 2 Wilson, 3 
and with them many other scientific men, had accepted the 
fact of the discovery, with the consequences resulting from 
it, when a letter from the Count de Pourtales put an end to 
a controversy which had extended over many years, by as- 
serting that the human bones were found not in the coral 
conglomerate, but in a fresh-water calcareous deposit dis- 
tinctly characterized by mollusks 4 such as still live in the 
lake. 

In the loess of the Mississippi at Natchez, Dr. Dickson 
found, side by side with the bones of the mylodon and 
megalonyx, a human pelvis, 5 blackened like them by time, 
and still more by the peat in which they were all lying. 
This time, Sir Charles Lyell showed more reserve ; he ob- 
served that the human bone might have come from the very 
numerous Indian burial-places in the neighborhood, and 
have been carried along by water. 6 Sir J. Lubbock did not 
express his opinions, but he extended a certain amount of 
credit to the opinion of Usher, who regarded the bones in 
question as fossil. 7 We must also mention that Dr. Leidy 
adopted the wiser course, and refrained until the recep- 
tion of more complete evidence from coming to any conclu- 
sions as to the contemporaneity of man with the mammals 
amongst the remains of which his bones were mixed. 

Agassiz' Lecture. — Mobile Daily Tribune, April 14, 1855. Nott and 
Gliddon, " Types of Mankind," p. 352. 

2 "Antiquity of Man," p. 44. 

3 " Pre-historic Man," p. 12. 

4 He met especially with A?npullaria and Paludina. — Am. Naturalist \. 
vol. II., p. 443, Oct., 1868. 

5 Os inno)7iinatum. Nott and Gliddon, " Types of Mankind," p. 349. 

c " Second Visit to America in 1846," vol. II., p. 197 ; " Antiquity of Man," 
Chap. X. 

7 " Pre-historic Man." Southall, "Recent Origin of Man," p. 551.. 
Short, " North Americans of Antiquity," p. 114. 



MAN AND THE MASTODON. 



35 



The plains stretching from New Orleans to the Gulf of 
Mexico are low and wet. In crossing them it is difficult to 
distinguish between dry land and the marshes covered with 
water-plants. These wild solitudes, shut in by a barren hori- 
zon, are the haunt of fevers, and tenanted by reptiles and in- 
sects of all kinds. The energy of man has succeeded in 
conquering the resistance of nature, and one of the chief 
cities of the South rises from alluvial deposits of the Missis- 
sippi, which attain at certain points a height of five hundred 
feet. Trenches, dug some years ago for laying down gas- 
pipes, laid bare several successive strata of ancient forest, 
in which geologists have made out ten generations of trees 
which have been buried for some centuries. 1 In a bed be- 
longing to the fourth forest, at a depth of sixteen feet, 
amongst the trunks of trees and fragments of burnt wood, 
lay a skeleton. The skull was beneath a gigantic cypress, 
which lived many years after the owner of the head, and had 
in its turn succumbed. 2 In estimating the time required for 
the growth of the trees with the duration of the various 
forest deposits, Bennet Dowler asserts the age of the human 
remains at 57,000 years. This is too hypothetical a calcula- 
tion to be worth discussion. Dr. Dowler seems to have felt 
this himself, for in a later calculation he gives the skeleton 
an antiquity of 14,400 3 years ! Like the first quoted, these 
figures rest on no solid foundation, if, as Dr. Foster 4 very 
reasonably suggests, the so-called forests successively laid 
low, were but trees carried down by the river in its frequent 

1 " Picture of NewOrleans," 1852 ; Nott and Gliddon, " Types of Mankind," 
p. 338 ; Lyell, "Antiquity of Man," pp. 44 and 200 ; Huxley, " Man's Place 
in Nature," Note by Dr. Daly ; Lubbock, " L' Homme Preh., p. 261 ; 
Southall, "Recent Origin of Man," pp. 470 and 551. 

2 The cypress ( Taxodium distichum) lives to a great age. Adanson 
mentions one, which he believes to have lived 5,200 years, and Humboldt 
speaks of another at Chapultepec, already old in the time of Montezuma, which 
he thinks has lived at least 6,000 years, but these estimates must be taken as 
subject to immense reduction. 

3 We give these estimates as quoted in a recent book. (Short's "American 
Indians," p. 123.) 

4 " Prehistoric Races of the United States of America," p. 76. 



36 



PRE-IIISTORIC AMERICA. 



inundations, and deposited with alluvial loam where the 
Mississippi empties its waters into the sea. The same con- 
clusion is arrived at, if we accept Dr. Hilgard's opinion, who 
looks upon the bed in which the skeleton lay, as a recent 
alluvial deposit. 

In a salt mine on the island of Petit Anse, Louisiana, was 
found a mat made of interlaced reeds. 1 The salt occurs at a 
depth of fifteen to twenty feet, and the fragment of mat was 
found at the level of the first deposit of salt. Two feet 
above lay some fragments of the tusks or bones of an ele- 
phant. Man and the proboscidian had lived at the same 
time and met death at the same place. 

In the bottom land of the Bourbeuse River, Gasconade 
County, Missouri, Dr. Koch discovered the remains of a mas- 
todon. 2 This animal, one of the largest known, had sunk in 
the mud of the marshes ; borne down by its own weight, it 
had been unable to regain its footing, and had fallen on its 
right side. Some men had seen it in this position, and had 
at first attacked it from a distance, throwing at it arrows, 
stones, and pieces of rock, of which a great number are mixed 
with its bones ; then, to get the better of it the more easily, 
they had succeeded in lighting fires round it, to which the 
heaps of cinders, some of them as much as six feet high, still 
bear witness. The arrows, lance-points, and knives were 
certainly the work of man, and the pieces of rock, some of 
them weighing no less than twenty-five pounds, had been 
brought from a distance. Every thing seems to prove the 
exact truth of the scene described by Koch. The following 

x Arundinaria macrosperma. This mat is now in the National Museum at 
Washington. 

2 Koch announced his discovery in many pamphlets of little scientific value. 
Dana has preserved the titles of a great many ; among them, see Koch's 
"Evidence on the Contemporaneity of Man and the Mastodon in Missouri." 
American yonrnal of Science and Arts, May, 1875. Consult also Foster 
(" Preh. Races," p. 62) ; Rau, (" North Am. Stone Implements", Smith Cont., 
iS72,) who admits the authenticity of Koch's discovery, and Short ("North 
Americans") who denies it. Schoolcraft, (Vol, I., p. 174) says of the bones of 
the mastodon discovered near the Potato River, that they were not petrified, 
which throws a doubt on their great antiquity. 



MAN AND THE MASTODON. 



37 



year he made a somewhat similar discovery in Benton 
County, Missouri. At about ten miles from the junction of 
the Potato River with the Osage, he found, under the thigh- 
bone of a mastodon, an arrow of pink quartz, and a little 
farther off, also in the direction of the animal, four other 
arrows, 1 which to all appearance had been shot at him. 2 

These observations are very likely correct ; but unfortu- 
nately Koch's want of scientific knowledge 3 and the exaggera- 
tions with which he accompanied his story, at first threw 
some discredit upon the facts themselves. But the recent 
discoveries of Dr. Aughey in Iowa and Nebraska have now 
confirmed them. There, too, the bones of the mastodon 
have been found mixed with numerous stone weapons ; and 
man, we learn to our surprise, armed with these feeble 
weapons, not only did not fear to attack the gigantic animal, 
but succeeded in vanquishing it. 

In the Sierra Nevada region, at various localities on the 
Pacific coast, numerous traces of the presence of man are 
met with. The discovery of implements or weapons at a 
depth of several hundred feet, in diversely stratified beds 
showing no trace of displacement, simply implies that the 
country was peopled many centuries before the arrival of the 
Spaniards, and that the inhabitants were witnesses of the 
convulsions of nature, of the volcanic phenomena, which 
brought about such remarkable changes. But when the 
bones of man and the results of his very primitive industry 
are associated with the remains of animals which have been 
extinct for a period of time of which it is difficult to estimate 
the length, it is impossible not to date the existence of that 
man from the most remote antiquity. 4 

These facts are confirmed in California, Colorado (fig. 13), 

1 Three of these arrows were of agate and one of bluish-colored silex. 

2 " Trans, of the Saint Louis Academy of Sciences," 1857. 

3 Koch was chiefly great as a skilful and persevering collector. The Ameri- 
can and European museums abound in specimens collected by him. He was 
the discoverer, among other things, of the magnificent mastodon of the British 
Museum. 

4 Bancroft, vol. IV., p. 697. 




38 

FlG. 13. — Canon of the Colorado River. 



MAN AND THE MASTODON. 



39 



Wyoming, wherever a search has been possible. In a manu- 
script which we believe to be still unpublished, Voy 1 de- 
scribes numerous and interesting discoveries, all carefully 
verified. We will mention two stone mortars found in some 
auriferous gravel near Table Mountain, one in 1858, at a 
depth of three hundred feet, the other in 1862, forty feet 
lower down, under a bed of lava four hundred feet' thick ; 
and at St. Andrews, several similar mortars, such as abound 
all over California. We confine ourselves to the following 
rather dry enumeration ; Dr. Snell speaks of a pendant of 
siliceous schist and several lance-points. From Shaw's Flat 
there are ornaments of calc-spar and a granite mortar; near 
Sonora and at Kincaid's Flat, stone implements ; at Gold 
Spring gulch, an oval granite dish more than eighteen inches 
in diameter, two to three inches thick, and weighing forty 
pounds; at Georgetown several very similar dishes. Every- 
where these flints, mortars, and dishes were associated with 
the bones of the mastodon, of the elephant, of a large tapir, 
and of other extinct animals. It has been the fashion to 
attribute these objects, evidently the work of man, to a sav- 
age and cannibal race, extinct with the animals amongst 
which it lived, and having nothing in common with the 
Indians of the present day. 2 

Traces of ancient mining operations are also met with in 
several places in North America ; but all we know about them 
is that they are of much earlier date than the Spanish con- 
quest. Mention is made of ancient mines of cinnabar exist- 
ing in California, 3 where the rocks have given way, burying 
in their fall the miners, whose skeletons lay at the bottom of 
the mine beside clumsy stone hammers, the only tools of 
these savage workmen. Similar hammers have been found 
In the Lake Superior mines. 4 We shall recur to this subject ; 

1 " Relics of the Stone Age in California." 

2 Bancroft, vol. III., p. 549. He quotes an unpublished manuscript of 
Powers. In appendix A, we give the chief discoveries and the fauna associated 
with them. 

3 Bancroft, vol. IV., p. 696. The Spaniards gave the name of Almaden to 
ihese mines in memory of those of their country. 

4 " Report of the Am. Assoc. for the Adv. of Science. "Cambridge, Mass., 1849. 



4 o 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



but we may add now that the workmanship of these objects 
is similar to that of the Indians, and need not be attributed 
to a different race. 

Berthoud tells us that in the Tertiary gravels at Cow's 
Creek, and near the South Platte River, he found some stone 
implements, together with which he picked up some shells 
that he assigns to the most ancient beds of the Pliocene de- 
posits, perhaps even to those of the Miocene period. These 
are, it must be admitted, but feeble proofs of a fact of such 
capital importance as the existence of man in tertiary times. 1 



The discovery we have still to mention has been discussed 
in all the learned societies of America and Europe ; and al- 
though a satisfactory solution of it has not yet been arrived 
at, it will be well to give such details as are possible. In 
1857, a fragment of a human skull was found, associated 
with the bones of the mastodon, in the auriferous gravel of 
Table Mountain, California, at a depth of 180 feet. Dr. C. 
F. Winslow sent this fragment to the Natural History So- 
ciety of Boston, 2 where it attracted little attention, because 

1 Berthoud says he found these objects in 40 0 N. Lat, and 104 0 W. Long. 
Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences, 1872. 

2 Whitney, " Auriferous Gravels of the Sierra Nevada," p. 264. 




Fig. 14. — The Calaveras skull, after Whitney. 



MAN AND THE MASTODON. 



41 



there was no evidence concerning the age of deposit. A 
fragment from the same skull was also given by Dr. Winslow 
to the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences. 

A few years later, i.e., in 1866, Professor J. D. Whitney, 
Director of the Geological Survey of California, announced 
the discovery of a skull, this time nearly complete (fig. 14), 
at a depth of about a hundred and thirty feet, in a bed of 
auriferous gravel on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada 
(Calaveras County). The deposit rested on a bed of lava 
and was covered with several layers, some of lava, some of 
volcanic deposits, overlying beds of gravel. 1 This succession 
of strata indicates long periods of agitation, during which in- 
undations alternated with eruptions. If the facts reported 
be correct, the waters have more than once invaded the dis- 
tricts inhabited by man, and burning lava from volcanoes 
has dried up the rivers at their sources. 

The skull was imbedded in consolidated gravel, in which 
were several other fragments of human bones, the remains of 
some small mammals which it was impossible to class, and a 
shell of a land snail {Helix mormoniini). Beside them lay 
some completely fossilized wood. We must add that the 
shaft of the mine, from which the skull was taken, has since 
become filled with water, and any further examination has 
become impracticable on account of the expense involved in 
pumping it out. 

Though the Calaveras skull was associated with no mam- 
mal bones, with the aid of which its age might be fixed, it 
is a fact that, in other parts of the Sierra Nevada, gravels of 
an identical kind have yielded the bones of extinct animals. 
There are deposits in California and Oregon where, to use a 

'We give a list, from the " Materiaux pour l'Histoire Primitive et Naturelle 
de l'Homme," of the series of deposits from above downward. 



1 black lava 


40 ft. 


6 gravels 


25 ft. 


2 gravels 


3 " 


7 brown lava 


9 " 


3 white lava 


30 " 


8 gravels 


5 " 


4 gravels 


5 " 


g red lava 


4 " 


5 white lava 


15 " 


10 red gravels 


17 " 



According to the proprietor of the mine, it is in bed No. 8 that the skull under 
notice was found. 



42 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



popular expression, the remains of elephants and mastodons 
might be had by the wagon-load. Beside gigantic pachyder- 
mata we meet with the Palaeolama, the Elotherium, 1 extinct 
oxen, Hipparion, and several kinds of horses. The fossil 
flora, impressions of which are of frequent occurrence in the 
argillaceous deposits, also presents notable differences from 
that of to-day. 2 It contains elms, figs, alders, and other 
trees of Europe ; but we notice particularly the complete 
absence of coniferous trees, which now give to the flora of 
California its distinctive character. Whitney also calls at- 
tention, in support of his theory, to such implements as 
lance-points, stone hatchets, mortars, doubtless used for 
grinding grain or kernels, all bearing witness to the presence 
of man, and which have been found in many places buried 
beneath beds of lava. The following are the terms in which 
he announces his discovery to M. Desor : "My chief in- 
terest now centres in the human remains, and in the works 
from the hand of man that have been found in the Tertiary 
strata of California, the existence of which I have been able 
to verify during the last few months. Evidence has now 
accumulated to such an extent that I feel no hesitation in 
saying that we have unequivocal proofs of the existence of 
man on the Pacific coasts prior to the glacial period, prior to 
the period of the mastodon and the elephant, at a time when 
animal and vegetable life were entirely different from what 
they are now, and since which a vertical erosion of from two 
to three thousand feet of hard rock strata has taken place." 
The scientific world awaited with natural impatience the 
confirmation of these discoveries. Desor constituted himself 
the spokesman of his colleagues, and in 1872 Whitney replied 
to him 3 : " You may rely upon my publishing this fact, with all 
its details, as soon as the necessary maps are engraved, and I 

1 According to Pictet, belonging to the Pachydermata and the family of 
Suidce. In appendix A. we give the list of the fauna drawn up by Whitney, in 
his "Auriferous Gravels." 

2 Lesquereux made out in the flora of the mining districts forms belonging to 
the Pliocene period, and even approaching those of the Miocene. 

r Revue d' Anthrop., 1872, p. 760. 



MAN AND THE MASTODON. 



43 



have completely finished my survey of the geology of the 
region. It will then be seen that there has been no mis- 
take. The mere publication of the fact that human remains 
and products of human industry have been found beneath 
the volcanic emissions of the Sierra Nevada would prove 
nothing, if the geological structure of the region had not at 
the same time been determined with sufficient precision for 
every one to be able to appreciate, from a scientific point of 
view, the significance of this discovery. Rest assured that 
the Calaveras County skull is not an isolated fact, but that I 
have a whole series of well-authenticated cases of the find- 
ing, in the same geological position, of either human remains 
or objects of human workmanship. " To make these state- 
ments complete, a geologist of Philadelphia at the same time 
informed the Abbe Bourgeois that Whitney had collected, 
in the Pliocene strata of California, in nine different places, 
human bones or relics of human industry, and that these 
facts were destined to remove all uncertainty. 1 

For the next eight years Whitney published no details of 
his discoveries, and the newspapers reported, without his 
taking the trouble to contradict it, the assertion that he had 
been the victim of an unfortunate hoax. 

Subsequently he referred to the subject in a lecture at 
Harvard University, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and 
since then has fully discussed the subject in the works to 
which his name gives a legitimate importance. He main- 
tains the authenticity of his discovery, as attested by the 
researches he has made in person, while admitting that the 
finders of the skull were but ignorant laborers, and that no 
competent person saw it in its original position. 2 

No proof is afforded by the characteristics of the skull. It 
resembles the Eskimo type, and the very prominent supra- 
orbital ridges form its most distinguishing feature. Chemi- 

1 " Materiaux pour 1' Histoire Primitive et Naturelle de 1' Homme," 1873, 
P- 55. 

2 Whitney: "Lecture in Cambridge," April 25, 1878. "The Calaveras 
Skull : Memoirs of the Museum of Comparative Zoology of Harvard College," 
vol. VI. 



44 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



cal analysis gives no decided verdict. It shows that the 
skull contains a slight trace of organic matter, 1 and that 
phosphate of lime is partly replaced by carbonate. 

We note these two facts, which seem to us important. 
It seems unlikely that traces of organic matter, however 
slight they may be, could have been preserved throughout 
the vast periods of time separating our own from the Ter- 
tiary period. No less unexpected would be the resemblance 
of a skull of that age to the skulls of the Eskimo of to-day, 
and it is difficult to admit the perpetuation of a type with- 
out appreciable modifications during the incalculable ages in 
which all nature has undergone so complete a transforma- 
tion. 3 

The conclusions to be arrived at seem to us simple. 
Without doubt man lived in California, and W 7 hitney's nar- 
rative is one more proof added to those already quoted, 
during the time when the volcanoes of the Sierra Nevada 
were in full action, before the great extension of the glaciers, 
before the formation of the valleys and the deep ravines, at 
a period when the flora and the fauna were totally different 
from those of to-day. But Whitney himself admits that if 
the eruption of the great mass of volcanic matter began 
toward the Pliocene period, it certainly lasted throughout 
the whole of the post-Pliocene period, and even during 
recent times. All initial or final dates are therefore want- 
ing, and even if it were possible to determine them it would 
be impossible to assert positively that there had been no 
displacement at any given point, Avhen the ground had been 
rent asunder by such terrible convulsions as volcanic erup- 
tions. Even those who admit the authenticity of the Cala- 
veras skull should reserve their opinion as to the period 
from which it dates, till the question has been more fully 

1 " The skull being as nearly deprived of its organic matter as fossil bones of 
the Tertiary period usually are." Whitney, p. 271 ; on page 269 is given the 
analysis. 

2 It seems certain, for instance, that at the period to which Whitney refers 
. this skull, the climate of California was tropical.—" Proceedings of California 

Acad, of Sciences," 1875, p. 389. 



MAN AND THE MASTODON. 



45 



studied from a scientific point of view, apart from the fierce 
controversies that these questions too often provoke. In 
1877 Prof. March said at Nashville ("Am. Ass. for the Ad- 
vancement of Science ") : " The evidence as it stands to-day, 
although not conclusive, seems to place the appearance of 
man in this country in the Pliocene ; and the best proof of 
this has been found on the Pacific coast." 1 

If, however, we hesitate as yet to admit the existence of 
man on the American continent in the Tertiary period, it is 
difficult to deny that long centuries have rolled by since the 
time when these unknown men lived amongst animals as 
little known as themselves. This is, in the present state of 
pre-historic science, the only decision possible. Other parts 
of this work will introduce the reader to other races with 
different tastes, different manners, and probably a different 
origin. History and tradition are silent about them, as 
about their predecessors, and long and patient researches 
are necessary to separate the few still obscure facts from the 
profound darkness enveloping them. May the difficulties 
of the task be our excuse, if inevitable errors creep into our 
narrative. 

1 No reasonable person who has impartially reviewed the evidence brought 
together by Whitney, and who saw, as we did, the Calaveras skull in its original 
condition, can doubt that it was found, as alleged by the discoverers, in the 
auriferous gravels below the lava. The only question to which some uncer- 
tainty still attaches itself among geologists is that of the true age of these 
gravels in geological time ; and whether all the extinct species of which re- 
mains are found in them were contemporaneous with the deposition of the 
gravels, and with the then undoubted presence of man. — [Am. Editor. ~\ 



CHAPTER II. 



THE KITCHEN-MIDDENS AND THE CAVES. 

AT the close of the last chapter we said that other men 
with different manners and tastes, perhaps also of different 
origin, replaced the first inhabitants of America. A con- 
siderable change took place, and we have not now to deal 
with nomad savages, wandering without shelter in the for- 
ests of the North and the pampas of the South ; we are to 
make acquaintance with a numerous population living in so- 
cial intercourse, and dwelling for long periods in a single lo- 
cality. The great difference in the fauna helps us to realize 
the importance of the change that had come about, and also 
the immense length of time necessary to its accomplishment. 
Though these men, who doubtless arrived in successive mi- 
grations, w r ere still rude and barbarous, the permanence of 
their homes was already a great step in advance, and atten- 
tive study enables us to discover the germs of a more ad- 
vanced civilization, which would develop still more rapidly 
among those who should succeed them. 

Every thing is of importance in treating of the existence 
of man in those times, which but yesterday were totally un- 
known. From this point of view the kitchen-middens (literally 
kitchen-heaps), as the heaps of rubbish and offal of all kinds 
which accumulate about the dwellings of man have come to 
be called, deserve special attention. 1 Excavations in them 
in the different countries of Europe have yielded the most 
interesting results. They have revealed the every-day life, 

1 These heaps of rubbish in America are so generally composed almost en- 
tirely of marine or fresh-water shells, that the term shell-heap, as applied to them,, 
"has here largely replaced the more cumbrous term derived from the Danish. 

46 



KITCHEN-MIDDEN S AND CAVES. 



47 



the food, the manners, the journeys, and the migrations of 
pre-historic men ; their progress can be followed and their 
gradual improvement noted. The excavators have collected 
hatchets, knives, implements of all kinds, in stone, in horn, 
and in bone ; fragments of pottery, and of charred wood. 
Amongst the cinders of these hearths, abandoned for cen- 
turies, have been found numerous bones of animals and 
birds, fish bones, shells of oysters, cockles, and other mol- 
lusks, all telling of the prolonged residence of man. No less 
numerous are the kitchen-middens or shell-heaps in America, 
and wherever excavations have been made they have been 
most fruitful in results. 1 Immense heaps of shells, the grad- 
ual accumulations of man, stretch along the coasts of New- 
foundland, Nova Scotia, Massachusetts, Louisiana, and 
Nicaragua, where deposits are described dating from the 
most remote antiquity. They are met with again in the 
Guianas, Brazil, and Patagonia ; near the mouths of the Ori- 
noco ; on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico ; on the coasts of 
the Pacific, as well as on those of the Atlantic ; and the 
shell-mounds of Tierra del Fuegoand of Alaska can be made 
out from afar by the navigator, on account of their green 
color, the herbage being darker and more luxuriant than 
that of the adjacent surface. 

Some of these shell-heaps are of considerable dimensions. 
Sir Charles Lyell describes one on St. Simon's Island at the 
mouth of the Altamaha River in Georgia, which covers ten 
acres of ground, to a depth varying from five to ten feet. 
It is formed almost entirely of oyster-shells, and excavations 
have yielded hatchets, stone arrow-heads, and some frag- 
ments of pottery. 2 Another at the mouth of the St. John's 

1 The report of the Pre-historic Congress held at Bologna, in 1 87 1, gives a 
fairly complete list of the authors who have written about the American shell- 
heaps. See also " Reports of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology, Cambridge, 
Mass.," vol. II. ; and of the " Am. Association for the Adv. of Science," Chi- 
cago, I867 ; Detroit, 1875 ; and Wyman's articles in the American Naturalist, 
1868. 

2 " Second Visit to the United States," vol. I., p. 152. — " British Ass. Rep. 
for 1859." Address of the President. 



4 8 



PRE- HIS TOPIC A ME RICA . 



River, consisting, like that visited by Lyell, of oyster-shells 
of extraordinary size, is three hundred feet in length, with a 
width not exactly determined, but which is certainly several 
hundred feet. The shell-heaps of Florida and Alabama are 
yet more considerable. There is one on Amelia Island of a 
quarter of a mile in extent, with a depth of about three and a 
width of nearly five hundred feet. That of Bear Point cov- 
ers sixty acres of ground ; that of Anercerty Point, one hun- 
dred ; and that of Santa Rosa, one hundred and fifty. Oth- 
ers are of a considerable height : Turtle mound, near Smyr- 
na, is a mass of shells attaining a height of thirty feet, 
and many others are more than forty feet high. 1 In all these 
shell-heaps quantities of shells have been collected, although 
much of the ground they occupy has not yet been examined; 
large trees, roots, tropical creepers, and other climbing plants 
covering them with often impenetrable thickets. 

All the shell-mounds just enumerated are situated on the 
shores of the sea, or in its immediate vicinity. One, how- 
ever, is mentioned fifty miles beyond Mobile, consisting almost 
entirely of marine shells. This fact implies a considerable 
alteration in the elevation of the shores since the time of 
pre-historic men ; for it is not very likely that he would have 
taken the trouble to carry the shell-fish necessary for his 
daily food to such a distance, when it w T ould have been so 
easy to set up his dwelling-place close to the beach. 
. Dr. Jones has explored forty shell-heaps on Colonel 
Island, Georgia. 2 The whole island, he tells us, is covered 
with shell-mounds. Similar heaps, chiefly formed of the 
shells of oysters, clams, and mussels, are of very frequent 
occurrence in Maine and Massachusetts, and excavations 
have yielded results no less interesting. Dr. Jeffries Wy- 
man has noted the rarity of stone implements, which are 
replaced by articles of bone, which are very common. 
Fragments of pottery are not abundant; the ornamenta- 
tion, always coarse, presents little resemblance to the most 



1 Brinton : " Notes on the Floridian Peninsula." Philadelphia, 1859. 

2 "Antiquities of the Southern Indians and Georgia Tribes." 



KITCHEN-MIDDENS AND CA VES. 



49 



ancient European pottery. The ornamentation was pro- 
duced by traceries made on the soft clay either with the point 
of a shell, or of a sharp stone. 1 The bones of animals are 
numerous. 2 Wyman met with those of the elk, the rein- 
deer, 3 the Virginian deer {Cervus Virginianns), the most 
common of all ; the beaver, the seal, the mud-turtle, the 
great auk, and the wild turkey. Except the auk (A/ca im- 
pennis), which was before its extinction only found in the 
extreme north, all these animals lived in Maine in historic 
times. The caribou, though much rarer than of old, is still 
met wjth in the same region. The dog should also be men- 




FlG. 15. — Various stone and bone implements from California. 

tioned. Many bones bear marks of his teeth ; so that he 
lived with man and was subject to him, at least as much so 
as his wild nature permitted. Some of these important 

*This primitive mode of ornamentation has been met with in Missouri, Illi- 
nois, Ohio, Tennessee, and Florida. " Report,- Peabody Museum," 1872. 

2 In appendix B. we give a complete list of the mammals, birds, reptiles, fish, 
and mollusca found by Jeffries Wyman in the shell-heaps of Mount Desert and 
Couch's Cove, Eagle Hill and Cotuit Port. 

3 The reindeer or caribou (Rangifer caribou) is still found within the con- 
fines of Maine ; but the wild turkey has become virtually extinct in New Eng- 
land. The elk is not found nearer than the Alleghany Mountains, and the 
great auk has retreated beyond the confines of the United States, if not extinct. 
— Wyman, " Report, Peabody Museum," 1868, p. 11. 



50 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



excavations were made under the supervision of American 
anthropologists, after the meeting in 1868, at Chicago, of the 
Association for the Advancement of Science. A mound 
opened on that occasion, covered an area of ten acres. Oyster- 
shells, cod bones, some of the bones of a dog, and those of a 
large deer were found ; all relics bearing witness to the 
presence of men living entirely on the products of fisheries 
and of the chase, and who as yet were strangers to all 
agriculture. 

The shell-heaps are also frequently met with in California, 
and some districts near San Francisco are literally covered 
with them. One of them, situated near San Pablo (Contra, 




Fig. 16. — Stone mortar (California). 

Costa County), is more than a mile long by half a mile wide. 
The shells of which it is made up, chiefly those of the oyster 
and the mussel, have all been subjected to the action of fire. 1 
Excavations to a depth of twenty-five feet in a similar 
mound have yielded arrow-points and hammers. Among 
others have been found thousands of bone implements (fig. 
1 5), the largest of which are eight inches long. Mixed with 

Foster, "Prehistoric Races of the United States," p. 163. Bancroft, voL 
IV., p. 709. 



KITCHEN-MIDDENS AND CA VES. 



5< 



these tools lay human remains, which have unfortunately 
been dispersed without any benefit to science. 1 

Dr. Yates sent a complete collection of the objects found 
by him in Alameda County to the Smithsonian Institution 
at Washington. 2 It includes several large stone mortars 
(fig. 1 6), already alluded to, some implements chiefly in- 
tended for boring, pipes, and a rough representation of a 
phallus. This last fact must be noted, for we shall see that 
discoveries of this description are rare in America ; this rar- 
ity contrasts strangely with the too frequent obscenities of 
Greek or Roman art. 

The excavations in Oregon were directed by Paul Schu- 
macher. 3 He made an important collection of mortars, 




Fig. 17. — Quartz scraper. 



pipes of inferior workmanship, pieces of pottery, little cups 
of soapstone, 4 daggers, knives, flint arrows, attempts at sculp- 
ture, and bone or shell implements. One of these excava- 

1 Bancroft, vol IV., p. 711. 

2 " Smithsonian Report," 1869, p. 36. 

3 " Researches on the Kjokkenmoddings of the Coast of Oregon and in the 
Santa Barbara Islands and Adjacent Mainland." — " Bui. U. S. Geog. 
Survey," vol. III. " Report, Peabody Museum," 1878. 

4 On the island of Santa Catalina Schumacher found a quarry of soapstone 
or steatite where the ancient inhabitants had set up a regular manufactory of 
pots and dishes. They are found in all stages of production, and about them 
may be picked up the tools used 'in fashioning them. Several similar dis- 
coveries in New England are mentioned. A steatite or soapstone quarry ex- 
isted at Christiana, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. More than 2,000 stone 
implements and a number of great stones, which seem to have served as ham- 
mers, have been collected there. The same process was employed as in the 
island of Santa Catalina ; the stone was roughly hewn on the spot, then taken 
from the quarry and given to the workman who finished it off, giving it the re- 
quired form. 



52 



P RE-HI S TORIC A ME RICA . 



tions brought to light thirty human skulls and two almost 
complete skeletons. The dead had been laid beneath the 
dwelling-place of the living. 

Shell-heaps also abound on Vancouver Island, according 
to a manuscript quoted by Bancroft (vol. IV., pp. 737, 741, 
et seq.). Amongst heaps of shells have been collected ham- 
mers, arrow-points, wooden clubs, and a sort of knife carved 
out of whalebone. Amongst the debris lay skeletons. One 
of them had a shell bracelet on his arm, and a stone arrow- 
head was sticking in one of his bones. At Esquimalt a dish 
was found with two handles, one of them representing the 
figure of a man, the other the head of an animal. As we 
shall see, exactly similar articles are met with in the mounds 
of Central America. That of Esquimalt probably dates 
from the same period as the mounds with which the island 
abounds, some composed of pebbles, others of clay or sand. 
Huge flat stones, regular menhirs, 1 are often placed verti- 
cally on these mounds ; venerable trees overshadow them, 
bearing witness to their antiquity. Newfoundland was dis- 
covered in 149 1 by the Venetian, John Cabot, who com- 
manded an expedition sent out at the expense of Henry 
VII. of England ; perhaps, also, for that question is still un- 
decided, by the Portuguese navigator, Cortereal. It is cer- 
tain, however, that when it was discovered, the coast of the 
island appeared to be uninhabited. The numerous mounds 
alone attested the presence of man, and these mounds, with 
the stone implements they concealed, must therefore date 
from a period previous to the arrival of Europeans. 

We must also mention the pits explored by Mr. F. W. 
Putnam 2 and others near Madisonville, in the Little Miami 
valley. These pits, which are from three to four feet in 
diameter and from four to seven feet deep, are filled with 
ashes arranged in thin layers and mixed with gravel and char- 

1 A British word signifying long stones, generally used to denote the tall up- 
right stones erected, for some purpose not now known with certainty, by the 
ancient Celts. 

2 " Putnam, one of the most eminent anthropologists of the United States, 
mentions having explored more than 400 of these pits. 



KITCHEN-MIDDEN S AND CA VMS. 



53 



coal. From top to bottom occur numerous bones of rep- 
tiles, fish, birds, and mammals. The bones of the deer, elk, 
and bear had been broken to get out the marrow ; shells, 
too, chiefly fresh-water mussels of the genus Unio, were col- 
lected ; some were pierced to serve as ornaments ; with 
them were fragments of pottery, implements made of bone, 
the antlers of the deer and the elk, arrow-points, scrapers, 
hammers, polished stone axes, copper ornaments, beads, and 
stone pipes. At the bottom of one of these pits Dr. Metz 
found a large quantity of carbonized grains of corn, covered 
with corn husks and a matting of reeds, also carbonized. 
These bear witness to a people not only sedentary but agri- 
cultural. 

The sambaquis are formed of the remains of the food of a 
people who for centuries inhabited the coasts of Brazil. 1 
There, as in a book, we can read of the customs, usages, and 
incidents of the daily life of this extinct race. Each bed of 
shells 2 or of cinders is a page, on which facts written in 
stones and ashes speak for themselves, and where the drama 
of life is retraced by the broken bones of the victims. 
From a heap on the banks of the Suguassu River numerous 
human relics have been taken, the fractures in the bones 
showing clearly that they had been broken to get out the 
marrow. The cannibalism of these ancient inhabitants of 
Brazil need not surprise us, for at the present day there are 
in this empire, so advanced in many respects, no less than 
ten cannibal tribes, numbering altogether some 70,000 or 
80,000 souls. 3 

The sambaquis often attain a considerable height. Captain 
Burton, who is, it is true, inclined to exaggerate, speaks of 

1 Rev. Arch., vol. XV. 1st. series, Paris, 1867. Ch. Wiener : " Estudos sobre 
los sambaquis do sul do Brazil " (Archivos de Museo National de Riode Janeiro y 
vol. I., 1876). 

5 The mollusca of which they are composed are chiefly bivalve testacea, espe- 
cially shells of the genus Corbula. Oyster and whelk shells are also met 
with. 

3 Dr. Moure : " Les Indiens de la Province de Matto Grosso " ; Dr. Rath de 
San Paolo : "Letter Addressed to the Anglo-Brazilian Times." 



54 



PRE-HIS TORIC A ME RICA . 



having seen one no less than one hundred feet high. One 
thing is certain, the shells forming these hillocks are so nu- 
merous that a single sambaqui has for more than two 
centuries not only supplied all the lime needed by the little 
neighboring town of Nostra-Senhora-da-Gloria, but yielded 
considerable quantities for exportation. 

In the region of La Plata paraderos are met with some- 
what resembling kitchen-middens. Both mark the sites of 
human dwellings, and the absence of all traces of disturbance 
excludes the idea of their having been cemeteries to 
which they were at first likened. Moreno and Zeballos 
have described those in several parts of Buenos Ayres ; 
Ameghino in his turn describes those of the banks of the 
Marco-Diaz, the Lujan, and the Frias. 1 

Numerous mammal bones are scattered about in certain 
places, often covering a considerable area. 2 The long bones 
are split, others show grooves and cuts ; nearly all have been 
subjected to the action of fire. With these bones have 
been picked up stone implements, chiefly arrow-points (fig. 
1 8) and fragments of clumsy and badly baked pottery, show- 
ing, however, traces of artificial coloration. Heaps of burnt 
earth and charcoal cinders tell clearly of the hearths of 
men. All the bones, whether of mammals or birds, are 
of species, such as the deer and llama, still extant in South 
America ; nowhere are any bones found, such as those 
of frequent occurrence in the pampas formation, belonging 
to extinct animals. The paraderos must not therefore 
be confounded with those formations, and their much more 
modern character brings them near to that of the ordinary 
shell-heaps. 

Recent discoveries 3 have lately confirmed this conclusion. 
Excavations in a tumulus of elliptical form 4 on the Parana 

1 " La Antiguedad del Hombre en el Plata," vol. I., p. 302, etc. 

2 A paradero on the banks of the Marco-Diaz covers an area of 612 by 408 
yards. 

3 Zeballos : " Un Tumulus pre-historique de Buenos Ayres " {Rev. d'Anthrop., 
1878, p. 577). 

4 The greatest diameter is 260 ft. ; the smallest 105 feet. The height is about 
eight feet. 



KITCHEN-MIDDENS AND CAVES. 



55 



near the port of Campana, have brought to light a great 
many objects which bear witness to an advanced state of 
culture. There are weapons and tools of quartz or of blue 
granite, often of remarkable workmanship, hand-mills very 
like those still in use in the interior of Africa, implements of 
deer-horn, 1 whistles of venado wood, and above all a 
considerable number of fragments of pottery, 2 very superior 
in execution to any hitherto noticed. Some of these frag- 
ments are colored red, others are decorated with designs or 
ornamentation. 

Among these pieces of pottery we must mention some 
very close imitations of animals, especially a parrot's head 
very true to life. The works of man lay mixed together in a 




Fig. 18. — Arrow-points from the paraderos of Patagonia. 



considerable accumulation of large pieces of charcoal, fish, and 
mammal bones. It is evident that this mound concealed one 
or more primitive hearths ; and that these hearths, accord- 
ing to a custom that we meet with in many different 
races, became burial-places ; the discovery of several human 
skeletons leaves no doubt on this point. 

So far we have spoken only of the shell-heaps near the 
sea-coast, and formed of marine shells. Similar heaps are 
met with on the banks of streams and rivers, made of the 
shells of such fresh-water or even of terrestrial mollusca, as 
man might use for food. In Brazil, of which we are now 
speaking, there are sambaquis thirty-seven and a half miles 

1 Cervus rufus and C. campestris. 

2 Dr. Zeballos speaks of more than 3,000 fragments ; among them he men- 
tions twenty' ollas or jars still intact. 



56 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



from the coast, and Professor Hartt has described one at 
Taperinha, 1 near Santarem, which he considers very ancient, 
and which is entirely made up of river-shells, mixed with 
fragments of pottery, cinders, and the bones of different 
animals. 

On the banks of the Mississippi and its tributaries White 
has also recognized shell-heaps, composed of fluviatile mol- 
lusks, nearly all belonging to the family of Naiadce, and 
chiefly to the genus Unio. Complete success has rewarded 
his persevering researches in the states of Minnesota, Iowa, 
Illinois, Missouri, and Indiana. 2 The heaps excavated by 
him are much smaller than those situated on the sea- 
coast ; the largest are not more than about one hundred 
yards long by four to five broad, and about three to six 
feet deep. That of Keosauqua (Iowa) rests on alluvial 
soil, and in it have been observed fragments of stone torn 
from the neighboring rocks, bearing traces of fire, and frag- 
ments of pottery of rude workmanship, mixed with large 
grains . of sand and ornamented with lines traced with a 
pointed bone or stone. In this same shell-heap White col- 
lected flint-chips, arrow-points, and a serpentine hatchet, with 
numerous bones of the Virginia deer. 3 They had been used 
as food by man, for the long bones which contain marrow had 
been split open, evidently for the sake of extracting it. In 
other heaps at Sabula and Bellevue, Iowa, White was able to 
make out the method employed by these men in cooking the 
shell-fish which formed their chief nourishment. They dug 
holes in the ground about one foot in diameter and of cor- 
responding depth, in which they lighted fires. The charcoal, 
ashes, and shells found in each one of these holes proves this 
beyond a doubt. 

1 "Report, Peabody Museum," 1873, p. 21. 

2, 'On Artificial Shell-heaps of Fresh-water Mollusks ; Am. Association, 
Portland (Maine), 1873. Very ancient shell-heaps are also mentioned as exist- 
ing in Tennessee, especially at Chattanooga, and at Mussel-Shoals. Colonel 
Whittlesey, whose name is an authority in America on all these questions, ex- 
pressed regret a few years ago that these heaps had not been excavated. 

3 In Appendix C. we give White's list of the chief mammals, fish, and mol- 
lusca which he found in the mounds he examined. 



KITCHEN-MIDDENS AND CAVES. 



ST 



Jeffries Wyman describes the river shell-heaps of Florida 
with as much care as does White those of the North. 1 They 
are mostly mounds exactly similar to those of the coast, only 
entirely made up of fresh-water shells, associated with a few 
rare bones of the Virginian deer, the oppossum, the raccoon, 
and some remains of birds. Some of these heaps also con- 
tain shells of Ampullaria and Paludina? hardly suitable for 
food, and rejected with disdain by the present Indians. One 
of the most remarkable heaps is situated at Silver-Spring, on 
the western side of Lake George. It is the largest of those 
visited by Wyman, in the valley of the St. John's River. It 
covers an area of twenty acres ; its height is very variable ; 
here it rises to no less than twenty feet, there it sinks to two 
or three, in proportion doubtless to the number of the in- 
habitants and the length of their stay. It is difficult to un- 
derstand how man can have collected such quantities of these 
mollusks, which now seem rare alike in the lake and the river. 
We must therefore suppose that they were much more 
numerous in past centuries, and have disappeared in the great 
struggle for existence which has been so fiercely maintained 
in every age and in every country. This is no exceptional 
instance ; the oysters of gigantic size, the shells of which 
form the vast deposits on the Damariscotta River, of Maine, 
are now very rare, and the same fact has been observed at 
Cape Cod and Cotuit Port. Of the shells found in the 
Danish kitchen-midden, those of oysters were the most 
abundant, and they are now but very poorly represented in 
the Baltic. Another consequence of the less favorable bio- 
logical conditions now enjoyed by the oyster is that it is 
diminished in size, and it is the same with the mollusks 
of Lake George and the St. John's River as with the oysters 

1 " Fresh-water Shell-heaps of the St. John River" ; American Naturalist, 
Jan., 1868. " Report, Peabocly Museum," 1874. Wyman remarks that the most 
ancient beds of the Florida kitchen-middens never contain specimens of pottery. 

2 Both are univalves. The former lives in warm latitudes only ; its shell is 
globular, the whorls ventricose, and with a wide aperture bounded by an un- 
reflected labrum. Pahidina resembles AmJ>ullaria, but the shell is longer and 
more slender, and generally more solid. 



58 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



of Maine. It would be easy to multiply instances, proving 
the incessant struggle of nature, of which we are only now 
beginning to discern the traces. 

The fact that the men who made these heaps of rubbish, 
which are now the sole witnesses to their existence, fed upon 
mollusks now rejected by the Indians themselves, so far 
from particular with regard to their food, is of a piece with 
the coarseness of their potteries. Wyman tells us that 
amongst the thousands of fragments he examined, none are 
of such skilful workmanship or of such elegant ornamenta- 
tion as those of the mounds of Mississippi, or those he him- 
self picked up in the sepulchres of Cedar Keys, or in the 
shell-heaps of Fernandina and of St. John's Bluff, on the sea- 
coast. 

Every thing goes to prove that these men were in a low 
state of culture ; we need not therefore wonder to find that 
they practised cannibalism. We have already noted its ex- 
istence amongst the nomad tribes of Brazil ; 1 as early as 1861, 
Jeffries Wyman noticed, in an excavation made on the 
shores of Lake Monroe, some long human bones (femur, 
tibia, humerus) broken into pieces a few inches long and 
mixed with bones of deer broken in exactly the same way. 2 
His interest once aroused, he paid especial attention to this 
question in his later researches, and he had soon ten very 
characteristic examples, which left no doubt in his mind as 
to the existence of cannibalism in Florida, at the period 
during which man collected about his dwelling the heaps of 
rubbish to which we have applied the name of shell-heaps. 

It is evident that the human bones did not come from a 
burying-place; no skeleton was complete ; the remains of 
several individuals were mixed in the greatest confusion ; all 
the bones, especially the long ones containing marrow, were 
broken like those found near Lake Monroe, and doubtless 

1 "Omnes cum magna voluptate vescuntur," says Osorio, of the natives of 
Brazil, speaking of their predilection for human flesh. De Rebtis Emmanuelis 
Regis Lusitanice, Colonise A gnppinse, I574» 

2 " Human Remains in the Shell-heaps of the St. John's River (East Florida) ; 
Cannibalism." — " Report, Peabody Museum," vol. I., p. 26. 



KITCHEN-MIDDENS AND CAVES. 



59 



for the same reason as those of the animals, such as the deer 
or the alligator, which these people used as food. The in- 
teresting excavations at Osceola Mound have since confirmed 
Wy man's conjectures. The remains of men and animals 
were inclosed in very hard breccia, somewhat like that of the 
European caves which have yielded such important results. 
From this breccia Wyman extracted two femora, belonging 
to two different individuals; on one of them he noticed an 
incision made round the bone in order to break it more 
easily. On the other femur, the incision may have existed, 
but it is not sufficiently marked to be stated with certainty. 

The learned professor also mentions a human bone found 
at Ipswich, Massachusetts, with evident marks of workman- 
ship upon it. 

While Jeffries Wyman was proving the existence of can- 
nibalism in the southern states, Manly Hardy announced 
the same fact with regard to New England. 1 In a shell- 
heap on the coast of Maine he discovered thirty or forty long 
bones, the femur, tibia, humerus, radius, a sternum, a pelvis, 
and two human skulls. Among these remains there were 
literally no vertebrae, ribs or little bones ; none of the human 
fragments corresponded with each other in such a manner as 
to make it possible to put together even part of the skeleton. 
The long bones were broken, and the excavations yielded 
bones of the beaver and the moose mixed with the human 
bones broken in the same way. There were also bird and 
fish-bones, numerous sea-shells, some fragments of pottery, 
a stone arrow and a bone needle. In many places heaps of 
cinders marked the hearth of the cannibal, where he had pre- 
pared his horrible meals. 

Such facts, sad as they are for humanity, cannot surprise 
us. In historic times we find man feeding on human flesh, 
even in the midst of abundance, and that when most animals 
show a singular repugnance to eating the flesh of one of their 
own species. Herodotus 2 tells us of the cannibalism of 

1 " Report, Peabody Museum," 1877, vol. II., p. 197. 

3 Book IV., chap. XVIII., XXVI., etc. These people probably inhabited 
Central Russia. 



6o 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



several of the people in the neighboring countries of Scythia r 
amongst the Androphagi and the Issedonians, for instance. 
Aristotle relates it of several peoples on the borders of the 
Euxine. 1 Diodorus Siculus mentions it amongst the Gala- 
tians, 2 and Strabo, in his turn, speaking of the inhabitants of 
Ireland, says: "They are more savage than the Britons,, 
feeding on human flesh, * * * and deeming it commenda- 
ble to devour their deceased parents." 3 In the ancient tombs 
of Asiatic Georgia, dating from the eighth to the second 
century, B. C, boiled or charred human bones are found, the 
remains, doubtless, of victims devoured by those who as- 
sisted in the feasts which formed an essential part of the 
funeral rites. 4 

St. Jerome, in the fourth century A. D., asserts that in 
Gaul he saw some Attacotes, descended from a savage 
Scotch tribe, who lived upon human flesh, notwithstanding 
they possessed great herds of swine, oxen, and sheep, to 
which their immense forests supplied excellent pasturage. 5 
How can we be surprised to find this degrading practice 
amongst savage tribes, when in the golden age of Rome the 
courtiers of the Emperor Commodus, according to Galen, ate 
human flesh in a refinement of gluttony, 6 and though the 
Scandinavian kitchen-middens show no trace of cannibalism, 
Adam of Brennan, who lived in the eleventh century and 

1 " Treatise on Government," book VIII. 

2 " Biblical History," book V., chap. XXXII. 

3 Strabo, " Geography," book IV., ch. V., pp. 298-9. (Hamilton's transla- 
tion, 1854.) 

4 Congress Arch, de Kazan, 1877. 

5 " Quid loquar de ceteris nationibus, quum ipse adolescentulus in Gallia 
viderim Attacotos, gentem Britannicam, humanis vesci carnibus et quum per 
sylvas porcorum greges et armentorum pecudumque reperiunt, puerorum nates 
et feminarum papillas, solere abscindere, et has Solas ciborum delicias arbi- 
trari." Hier., Opera, vol. II., p. 335, coll. Migne, vol. XXII. Richard of 
Cirencester says that the Attacotes lived on the banks of the Clyde beyond the 
great wall of Hadrian. 

6 Commodus lived from 161 to 192 A.D. We take this fact from Bachelet's 
" Dictionnaire des Sciences morales et politque." We might add these lines of 
Juvenal: "... Sed qui mordere cadaver sustinuit, nil unquam hac carne 
libentius edit." (Sat. XV., v., 87.) 



KITCHEN-MIDDENS AND CAVES. 



6l 



preached Christianity at the Court of King Sven Ulfsen 
represents the Danes of his time as wearing the skins of 
beasts, hunting the aurochs 1 and the elk, imitating the cries 
of animals, and devouring their fellow-creatures. 2 

Examples also abound in America, and the death of the 
man to be eaten was very often accompanied by horrible 
tortures, unknown among the natives of the other conti- 
nent. The accounts of travels published by Bry contain 
many details of the ways in which the savages of Guiana 
were accustomed to prepare, cook, and eat the bodies of 
their victims. 3 In their first feeble effort to reach Peru by 
way of the Isthmus of Panama, in 1524, Pizarro and his 
companions one day entered an Indian village from which 
the terrified inhabitants fled precipitately at their approach, 
leaving the human flesh they were cooking before the fire. 4 
The Mexicans indulged in these hideous repasts on all their 
feast days. The captive was given up to the warrior who 
had made him prisoner, and the friends of the conqueror 
were invited to a joyful feast. It was not, says Prescott, 5 
the meal of starving wretches, but a refined banquet, pre- 
pared with all the art the Mexicans could bring to bear 
upon it. The allies of the Spaniards, after the siege of 
Mexico, ate the flesh of their enemies, and the besieged 
sacrificed in the honor of the god of war numerous victims, 
amongst whom Cortes often recognized one of his soldiers, 
from the whiteness of the skin. After the sacrifice the 
bodies were cut up», and the flesh distributed to the people. 

The Caribs, like the Fijians, were careful to fatten the 

1 The Bos Urns or Bison of Poland. 

2 Schwedcri s Urgeschichte, p. 341. 

8 " Collectiones peregrinationum in Indiam Occidentalem," XXV., partes 
comprehensas a Th. de Bry et a M. Merian publicatse, Francofurti ad Moenum, 
1590, 1634. "Bresil voy. de J. Stadius Hesous," (Part III., pp. 71, 81, 89, 125 
and 127). "Voyage de Joannes Lerus de Burgundus," part 3, p. 213. See 
also the numerous facts collected by Wyman, " Report, Peabody Museum," 
1864. 

4 Prescott : " History of the Conquest of Peru," p. 96, 1854. 

5 Prescott : " Hist, of the Conquest of Mexico," Philadelphia, 1874, vol. I., 
P- 31. 



62 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



unfortunate victims they meant to eat. 1 Cannibalism existed 
amongst the Algonquins, Iroquois, the Maumis, the Kicka- 
poos, and many other tribes, and the Jesuits, who were 
often witnesses of the feasts in which human flesh was the 
only food supplied, have handed down to us an account of 
them. 2 One shudders with horror at the tortures invented 
by the ingenuity of man. Among some Indian tribes these 
tortures began several days before the final sacrifice. 
Lighted firebrands were applied to every part of the body ; 
the nails of the fingers and toes were wrenched off ; the 
flesh was torn, and burning splinters plunged into the gaping 
wounds ; the victim was scalped and burning coals applied 
to the spot. Women 3 and children were not the least eager 
amongst the torturers, and when the sufferer at last expired, 
his breast was opened, and if he had died bravely the heart 
was taken out, cut in pieces, and distributed to the young 
warriors of the tribe. They also drank the still smoking 
blood, hoping to inoculate themselves with the courage of 
which they had just had proof. The trunk, limbs, and head 
were roasted or boiled ; all gorged themselves with the 
horrible food, and the day ended with dances and song 
which gayly finished off the feast. 4 

In our own day, even, sailors and travellers have told of 
similar scenes. The Apaches, to a very recent date, 
were accustomed to treat their prisoners with a ferocity 
equal to that of their ancestors. The inhabitants of Terra 
del Fuego have at least as an excuse the wretched existence 
they lead, in a country almost destitute of all the neces- 

1 Peter Martyr d' Anghiera : " De Rebus Oceanicis et Orbe Novo, Decades, 
I., Book I. 

2 P. Hennepin: " De'scription de la Louisiane," Paris, 1868, pp. 65, 68, 
and 69. 

3 "On this occasion it is always observed that the women are more cruel 
than the men." Schoolcraft: "Ethnological Researches Respecting the Red 
Men of America," vol. III., p. 189. 

4 La Pothierie : " Histoire de l'Amerique," Paris, 1723, p. 23. Father 
Jean de Brebeuf: " Voyage dans la nouvelle France occidental." He himself 
perished under .such tortures as those he had described. Barth. de Vimont's 
" Relation," Paris, 1642, p. 46. 



KITCHEN-MIDDENS AND CAVES. 



63 



saries of life. The expeditions of these miserable savages, 
of which Captain Fitzroy's description 1 is most melancholy 
reading, were always made for the sake of getting prisoners ; 
when they failed, and hunger became pressing, the old 
women of the tribe were seized, roasted at a roaring fire, 
and pieces of the flesh distributed to the warriors. Of late 
years, however, a better state of things has prevailed in those 
desolate regions, brought about by the visits of various ex- 
peditions, and the presence among them of devoted mission- 
aries. But if the famine which bears so hardly on the 
Fuegians nearly every year may be referred to as an excuse 
for their cannibalism, we nevertheless find this practice has 
prevailed in regions of plenty, amongst the most luxuriant 
vegetation of the tropics. Humboldt saw similar scenes on 
the banks of the Orinoco ; at Tahiti even, where the gentle 
and affectionate manners of the inhabitants have been fre- 
quently noted by travellers, the sacrifice of prisoners was 
followed by cannibal feasts ; the honor of eating the eyes of 
the victims being reserved to the king. The first name of 
Queen Pomare {Aimata, I eat the eye) is a last souvenir of 
the royal privilege. 2 

To conclude these melancholy accounts, which we might 
easily extend indefinitely, Dr. Crevaux, in a recent explora- 
tion of the Amazon and its chief tributaries, came upon sev- 
eral cannibal tribes. Amongst the Ouitotos, who live on 
the banks of the Yapure, he saw some flutes made of human 
bones, and he tells us that one day, having surprised an old 
woman in the act of preparing her dinner, he saw the grin- 
ning head of an Indian boiling in her kettle. 

These facts form a striking contrast to our brilliant civiliza- 
tion, and to the progress of which we are so justly proud* 
They show in what degradation man may exist ; what prac- 
tices may be justified by custom and superstition ; and what 
efforts must still be made to raise to a state of civilization 
so many miserable races. It is to be borne in mind, how- 

1 11 Voyage of the Adventure and the Beagle," vol. II., p. 183 and 189. 
8 " Congr. Preh. de Paris," 1867, p. 161. 



6 4 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



ever, that the practice of cannibalism in many cases was not 
a mere devotion to a diet of human flesh, but a rite or ob- 
servance of a superstitious or religious character, not so far 
removed from the anthropomorphism which in the Middle 
Ages claimed for the chief Christian rite the " real presence 
of body and blood " of the victim sacrificed for the welfare 
of the race. 

In regard to the age of the shell-heaps the day has not yet 
come for expressing a definite opinion. It is certain many 
of them are of great antiquity, and that additions continued 
to be made to some of them up to a very recent time. 

Historians are generally silent about these heaps, which did 
not attract much attention until archaeology began to take 
its place among the sciences. When the Indians were ques- 
tioned about them they generally answered that they are 
very old, and are the work of people unknown to them or to 
their fathers. 1 As an exception to this rule, however, the 
Californians attribute a large shell-heap formed of mussel- 
shells and the bones of animals, on Point St. George, near 
San Francisco, to the Hohgates, the name they give to seven 
mythical strangers who arrived in the country from the sea, 
and who were the first to build and live in houses. 2 The 
Hohgates killed deer, sea-lions, and seals ; they collected the 
mussels which were very abundant on the neighboring rocks, 
and the refuse of their meals became piled up about their 
homes. One day when fishing, they saw a gigantic seal ; they 
managed to drive a harpoon into it, but the wounded animal 
fled seaward, dragging the boat rapidly with it toward the 
fathomless abysses of the Charekwin. At the moment when 
the Hohgates were about to be engulfed in the depths, where 
those go who are to endure eternal cold, the rope broke, the 
seal disappeared, and the boat was flung up into the air. 

1 It is the uniform testimony of those who have within recent years been in 
communication with the Seminoles, that no tradition of the origin of these heaps 
has come down to them. They attribute them to their predecessors in the occu- 
pation of the peninsula of Florida. See Wyman, " Report, Peabody Museum," 
1868, p. 16. 

2 Bancroft, vol. III., p. 177. 



KITCHEN-MIDDENS AND CAVES. 



65 



Since then the Hohgates, changed into brilliant stars, return 
no more to earth, where the shell-heaps remain as witness of 
their former residence. 

Though tradition is silent as to the kitchen-middens, a few 
facts exist which may help us if not to fix a definite age for 
them, at least to determine something of their limits. The 
shell-heaps existed long before the arrival of the Spaniards, 
and the mammals whose remains are found in them were of 
the same kind as those seen by the conquerors. No bones 
of large extinct animals have been found in the shell-heaps, 
either on the sea-coast or on the banks of rivers. So far no 
discovery has been made in those of North America of any 
iron, copper, or bronze implements, or of any gold or silver 
objects. It therefore seems natural to place their formation 
between the time of the disappearance of the latest tertiary 
fauna and the first introduction of metals by Europeans. 

It is evident that they are the accumulations of many 
generations. The fresh-water shell-heaps, judging from those 
hitherto examined, appear to be more ancient than those 
formed near the sea, but were in localities less liable to 
denudation and change. The shell-heaps of California are 
quite recent, those of Florida perhaps less so ; and even in 
neighboring districts the pieces of pottery, weapons, and im- 
plements found in different shell-heaps sometimes pre- 
sent notable differences, suggesting that they were not con- 
temporaneous. Did the men who slowly piled up these 
shell-heaps belong to one race, or to races that successively 
occupied the same site ? Without being able to say any 
thing positive on this point, it is an invariable law of history, 
that conquerors should occupy the dwellings of the con- 
quered, until they were in their turn driven out by yet more 
powerful or braver invaders. The shell-heaps all over America 
greatly resemble each other ; but there is nothing in this re- 
semblance to surprise us; it is natural to the savage to throw 
out at the door of his hut and about its immediate vicinity, 
useless objects, rubbish of all kinds, without caring about 
the proximity of dirt. This is a common thing all the world 



66 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



over. Travellers who visit the Eskimo of to-day, the last 
representatives of one of the most ancient American races, 1 
tells us that about their tents the ground is strewn with all 
sorts of rubbish, emitting a most noisome odor. There we 
have a sufficiently exact picture of the manners and customs 
of most of the savages who inhabited America in pre-historic: 
times. 

Amongst these heaps, some, those of Santa Rosa for in- 
stance, bear evidence that those who formed them devoted 
themselves to the chase, wearing the skins of the animals 
they killed ; numerous bone needles giving proof of their in- 
dustry. Amongst the neighboring middens of Bear Point, 
only sea-shells are found ; no sign of the bones of animals, 
no bone implements. Must we then conclude that the 
people who made them were different, or that their clothes 
were made of grass or of fibres from the bark of trees? as 
were those of the natives of Florida, according to the Spanish 
conquerors, who were the first to penetrate into the country. 

This is not at all necessary. These natives were migratory 
with the seasons, and, judging by the practice of the Eskimo, 
probably limited their pursuits in accordance with their super- 
stitions ; at one season they resided at a certain spot, hunted 
the seal, but perhaps like the Eskimo did no sewing while 
the hunt was going on. At another season, as in winter, re- 
tiring to some sheltered cove they might have subsisted 
chiefly on mollusks, and occupied their time in making cloth- 
ing, carving wooden or bone utensils, etc. Then the con- 
tents of the two resulting middens would be quite different, 
though made by the same people at the same period of their 
history. 

Differences are often noticeable in the pottery. The vases. 

1 It is interesting to note the resemblance in primitive times between the 
Eskimo and the inhabitants of the Aleutian Islands. The weapons, tools, and 
implements yielded in excavations are identical. The difference in the fauna 
and the climate gradually modified the customs of the two branches of one 
people, as separation did their language. W. H. Dall, " Remains of Later Pre- 
historic Man from the Caves of the Catherina Archipelago, Alaska Territory.'" 
"Smith. Cont.," No. 318, 4 0 , 1878. 



KITCHEN-MIDDENS AND CA FES. 



6/ 



in one case are elegant in form and ornamentation; the 
handles represent the figures of animals and of men, they re- 
semble in many respects those found in the mounds of the 
interior. In other cases, on the contrary, the pottery is badly 
baked and of coarse construction. In certain regions, suit- 
able stone is rare, and pointed bones seem to have served 
for defensive weapons and all domestic requirements. As a 
general rule, excavations in the Atlantic shell-heaps have not 
produced either a single l pipe or a fragment that could have 
belonged to one, so that the fashion of smoking, of which we 
shall notice so many traces, probably came in later. On the 
other hand we find ornaments almost everywhere, and often 
pieces of red chalk or haematite, doubtless to be used in 
coloring wood or skins. The taste for finery is innate 
in man even when most miserable and degraded, and 
his taste sometimes astonishes us with the strange form 
it assumes. In the vast regions where the accumulations 
we are describing have been found, the differences must 
necessarily be very considerable. No general conclusions 
or final theories are possible ; for if one point seems proved, 
many others are uncertain or even contradictory. 

One method has frequently been adopted in forming an 
approximate idea of the date of the formation of certain 
shell-heaps. There are some which are covered with gigantic 
trees. That of Silver-Spring is crowded with venerable oaks ; 
one of the largest of them measures no less than twenty-six 
to twenty-seven feet in circumference, so that, according to 
Jeffries Wyman, 1 it cannot be less than six hundred years old. 
Judging from their concentric rings, he estimates the age of 
the trees on the shell-heaps of Blue-Spring and Old Town at 
four hundred years. If these calculations could be con- 
sidered to be exact, they would enable us to ascertain satis- 
factorily the time when the shell-heap was abandoned, and 
the forest tree replaced the dwelling of man ; but even then 
our ignorance would remain complete as to the initial date 
when the accumulation of shell and rubbish began, and it is, 
this which it is above all important to know. 



" Report, Peabody Museum," 1872, vol. I., p. 25. 



68 



PRE-IIIS TORIC A ME RICA . 



Moreover, recent observations of botanists show that, es- 
pecially in warm regions, the concentric rings of growth in 
trees by no means accord with successive years ; more than 
fifty rings having been observed in a tree only fourteen years 
old on one occasion. They are entirely untrustworthy as a 
measure of chronology. 

The deposits of guano in Peru have yielded fish (fig. 19), 
little figures, clumsy gold and silver images, and numerous 
fragments of pottery The Peabody Museum at Cambridge, 
Mass., owns twenty gold ornaments from the Chincha Islands. 1 
These consist of very thin metal plates arranged in parallelo- 
grams from seven to eight inches long by three to four wide, 
covered with dotted lines and pierced with a hole, by means 
of which they can be hung round the neck or fastened to the 
clothes. Man then inhabited these islands when the beds 
which have played such an important part in our modern 



Fig. 19. — Silver fish from the Chincha Islands. 

agriculture were accumulating, and doubtless fed upon the 
numerous sea-birds peopling them. In some parts the beds 
are covered with marine deposits, sometimes attaining a 
depth of six feet. A geological survey of the district indi- 
cates that since they were visited by man, these islands have 
been submerged beneath the waves and have emerged from 
them again ; but the causes of these phenomena are yet un- 
known. According to all appearance these deposits belong 
to the same periods as the shell-heaps above described ; the 
occurrence of precious metals, such as gold and silver might, 
indeed indicate a more recent epoch, but we know that they 



1 " Report, Peabody Museum," 1874, p. 20. 



KITCHEN-MIDDENS AND CA VES. 



6 9 



were used at an earlier date in Peru than in North or Central 
America. 

In quaternary times the Europeans inhabited natural caves 
or caves artificially enlarged, according to their requirements. 
These caves, especially those of the south of France and of 
Belgium, have yielded the most certain and most inter- 
esting proofs of the existence of pre-historic man, and of 
his habits and his daily life. In America, grottos seem to 
have been chiefly used as burial-places, during a period of 
time the limits of which it is impossible to fix. The earliest 
explorers 1 tell of caves in Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky, 
in which human bones were found. Others in California were, 
we are told, covered with admirably preserved drawings repre- 
senting men or strange animals ; they contained many 
mummies. Clavigero, who gives these details, adds that 
these men differed as much in their features as in the gar- 
ments with which they were covered, from the races met 
with by the Spaniards. From a cave in the Rio Norzas val- 
ley, in the province of Durango, Mexico, a considerable 
number of mummies have been taken, of an appearance very 
distinct from the present inhabitants of the country. The 
objects deposited near the mummies were hatchets, stone 
arrow-points, and vases, the decoration of which has been 
fancied to resemble that of some Egyptian pottery. 3 The 
Spaniards could not contain their astonishment at the sight 
of the marvellous feather garments with which the bodies of 
the Incas of Peru were covered, in the caves which are de- 
scribed as forming their last resting-places. But nearly all 
these caves, if they ever really existed, have been lost sight 
of ; or all they contained has disappeared, and we can not 
doubt the exaggeration which appears in most of the details 
given by the conquerors. The very few caves still known 
are extremely difficult to explore. Some, especially those 
met with in Mexico, in Chihuahua, or California, were sepul- 
chres, and retained no traces of previous habitation ; others 

1 Conant : " Footprints of Vanished Races," ch. VI. 
3 Proc. Anthropological Soc. of Washington, 1879, p. 80. 



7° 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



had been occupied by Indians, as dwellings or places of 
refuge, 1 and all the objects that explorers have been able to 
collect are of recent origin. 

Amongst the caves which may be of some interest, we 
will name those in the calcareous cliffs overlooking the Gas- 
conade River. One of the most remarkable is in Pulaski 
county, Missouri. It was originally formed in geologi- 
cal times, and afterward artificially enlarged by man ; its 
entrance is rather difficult of access, being perpendicular to 
the river. Conant had a trench made 175 feet long without 
reaching the limits of the successive deposits. We give a 
list of the beds as they occur, with their depth : 

A. Alluvium mixed with cinders and fragments 

B. Cinders 

C. Clay . 

D. Cinders 

E. Alluvium 

F. Clay and cinders mixed 

G. Cinders 

H. Alluvium 

J. Cinders mixed with charcoal 
K. Alluvium . 
L. Cinders .... 
M. Alluvium mixed with fragments of charcoal 

Total .... 67 ins. 

The strata must have been frequently disturbed. They 
consist of earth and cinders mixed with fragments of pot- 
tery and charcoal, stone implements, broken human bones, 
and a great number of bone or shell tools of various forms, 
rather roughly made (fig. 20). The original soil consisted 
of a reddish clay, where were picked up numerous shells of 
Unios completely decomposed. Similar shells occur in posi- 
tively prodigious quantities in the various strata. At a 
depth of about two feet the explorers came to a skeleton 

Schoolcraft: " Archives of Aboriginal Knowledge," vol. IV. , p. 217. "The 
Navajos," says Gallatin, " inhabited caves in which they kept their crops." 
" Nouv. Ann. des Voyages," vol. CXXXI., 1857. 



18 


ins. 




<( 


2 




,1 
' 2 


a 


i 


a 




it 


3 




3 


a 


1 




2 




2± 
52 


a 


4 


a 




a 


7 




a 


3 






a 


20 



KITCHEN-MIDDENS AND CAVES. 



71 



lying on its back, then to a second doubled up, a little 
further to that of a very old woman. All were in such an 
advanced state of decay that only a few fragments could be 
preserved, and those were of no use for comparison. Round 
about the skeletons were strewn great quantities of the 
bones of deer, bears, mud-turtles, and wild turkeys. The 
skulls of all the animals were broken ; the brains were evi- 
dently considered a dainty. This was undoubtedly a cave 
long inhabited by man ; burial in it was an accidental feat- 
ure, unless these bodies may have been intentionally interred 
near their own hearth. We lean to the latter opinion, for 
this was a custom dear to the heart of many savage 
people. 

Shelter cave, near Elyria, Lorain county, Ohio, must also 
have served as a shelter to early inhabitants of the country. 




Fig. 20. — Bone implements from the Gasconade River. 



At a depth of four feet the difficulties became so great that 
the excavations could not be proceeded with. At this point 
the soil formed a compact breccia, in which were imbedded 
the bones of the bear, wolf, elk, rabbit, and squirrel, among 
which could be made out three human skeletons, probably 
those of men who had been crushed, in the shelter they had 
chosen, by the fall of part of the roof. The skulls, which 
were in a good state of preservation, were exhibited in Cin- 
cinnati, in i85i,atthe meeting of the American Associa- 
tion for the Advancement of Science. They were unfortu- 
nately destroyed a few years afterward, together with the 
museum of the Homoeopathic College in which they had 
been placed, and we have no information enabling us to de- 
scribe them. One of the most distinguished archaeologists of 
the United States — Colonel Whittlesey — attributes a great 



72 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



antiquity 1 to these remains, but his estimate is too hy- 
pothetical to be worth discussing. 

Ash Cave in Benton county, Ohio, is one of these rock- 
shelters, so common in the south of France, and is remark- 
able for a considerable deposit of cinders covering an area of 
one hundred feet long by an average breadth of eighty feet. 
A trench two and one half feet deep revealed a considerable 
mass of debris of all kinds, bones of animals such as were 
suitable for the food of man, little sticks which may have 
been used as shafts for arrows, fragments of pottery, nuts, 
and grass fibres. A skeleton was seated near the wall, and 
the pieces of bark with which he had been covered, doubtless 
to keep the cinders from touching him, could still be made 
out. The greatest precaution had also evidently been 
taken with regard to a packet of little seeds 2 placed near 
him, which had been carefully covered with a layer of grass 
and ferns, and then with some coarse tissue. We are igno- 
rant alike of their purpose and of the rite with which they 
were connected. We can only add that Professor Andrews, 3 
from whom we have gleaned these details, considers the 
skeleton to date from a very remote period. 

In June, 1878, a habitation was examined situated in Sum- 
mit county, Ohio ; it was formed by two rocks, each from 
fifteen to twenty feet in diameter, with a third rock formings 
a kind of roof. This dwelling, open though it was on the 
north and south, had served as a home for long generations, 
for after removing a thin layer of vegetable mould, the 
archaeologists who conducted the excavation met with beds 
of cinders four or five feet in thickness. Numerous boul- 
ders, that the troglodytes had not even had the energy to 
remove from their wretched residence, were imbedded 
amongst these cinders, together with more than five -hun- 

1 " Judging from the appearances of the bones and the depth of the accumu- 
lation over them, two thousand years may have elapsed since these human skele- 
tons were laid on the floor of the cave." — " Evidences of the Antiquity of Man 
in the U. S." 

2 Chenopodium album. 

* " Report, Peabody Museum," 1877, vol, II., p. 48. 



KITCHEN-MIDDENS AND CA VES. 



n 



dred fragments of pottery, bones, shells, and stone weapons 
or tools. The pottery retained the marks of the bark fibres 
of the netting in which it had been supported before 
baking. The deeper the excavations went the coarser and 
clumsier was the pottery. Not one of the stone objects 
showed the slightest trace of polishing, and most of them 
seem to have served as knives. The bones were those of 
the bear, wolf, porcupine, buffalo, stag, squirrel, fox, beaver, 
and there were some which had belonged to a heron and a 
wild turkey. The bones containing marrow had been broken, 
some were roughly pointed, all indicating that the culture of 
the cave men had been of the most primitive description. 1 

In Pennsylvania, eighty-two miles from Philadelphia, 2 on 
the face of a cliff rising parallel to the Susquehanna River, 
a natural cave was found, some seven feet high, in a very 
hard quartzite, showing no trace of erosion either by the 
work of man or the action of water. The original soil con- 
sisted of yellow clay, and on this clay rested a bed of black 
mould, some thirty inches thick. 3 The whole deposit was 
rich in human remains, and there were collected here more 
than four hundred arrow-points made of petrosilex, jasper, 
basalt, argillite, with rare examples in quartzite, which ma- 
terials were easily accessible from the neighboring rocks. 
These arrows presented a great variety of forms, and were in 
every stage of manufacture. With them were found five 
perforated objects commonly called tomahawks, but too thin 
to have been used as a weapon or tool ; some knives or frag- 
ments of knives, only the concave sides of which were 
polished, the convex side showing a groove and marks of 
having been struck sharply ; some broken turtle bones, some 

1 Read, "Exploration of a Rock shelter, in Boston, Summit county, Ohio." 
— A?)ierican Antiqziarian, March, 1880. 

2 Haldeman : "A Rock Retreat in Pennsylvania," Congres des American- 
istes. Luxembourg, 1877, vol. II., p. 319. 

3 " This mould," says Haldeman, "is of vegetable origin." Dr. Andrews 
{American Naturalist, February, 1876) says that it must have taken centuries 
to form ten inches of vegetable mould, but we have already pointed out how 
hypothetical such calculations always are. 



74 



P RE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



Unio shells from the river, three hundred fragments of pot- 
tery, the tube of an earthenware pipe resembling those we 
shall describe in connection with the mound-builders, and 
lastly a pestle and some pieces of red or black ferruginous 
minerals, which these cave men had used to get the colors 
they required, traces of these colors still remaining on the 
pestle. The excavations yielded no bones that could be 
attributed to man. Those who used this shelter were not, 
therefore, cannibals, and they disposed of their dead away 
from their dwelling. 

Some human bones have been picked up in a cave near 
Louisville, Kentucky. This cave, which is very large, has a 
remarkable declivity at the further end ; it has been very im- 
perfectly excavated, the numerous rattlesnakes having driven 
off the explorers. It has been ascertained however, that, as 
in the cave of Elyria, the bones were imbedded in a breccia 
formed by the lime-impregnated water which oozed from 
the roof. After a great deal of trouble the explorers suc- 
ceeded in taking out six skulls almost intact, and with them 
a hatchet, a mortar, and a stone arrow-point. Colonel 
Whittlesey attributes to these skulls an antiquity no less re- 
mote than to those of Elyria. 

The German traveller, Miiller, tells of the existence, in the 
province of Oajaca, of some caves which had been used as 
human residences from a very ancient epoch ; we must con- 
tent ourselves with mentioning them, together with the dis- 
coveries made at High Rock Spring near Saratoga, New 
York, although since i$39 some archaeologists have claimed 
for these, as first traces of the aboriginal American, a great 
antiquity. 1 We hasten to pass to better information pub- 
lished in an excellent report addressed in 1875 to the 
trustees of the Peabody Museum by Putnam. 2 

The learned professor noticed near Gregson's Springs, 
Kentucky, a rock-shelter resembling those we have men- 
tioned. The rock had been hollowed out artificially and the 

1 Dr. Maguire : Proc. Boston Soc. of Natural History, vol. II., May, 1839. 

2 Report, Vol. I., p. 48, etc. 



4 

KITCHEN-MIDDENS AND CAVES. 



7: 



soil was strewn with the bones of animals, worked stone 
articles, and fragments of pottery and charcoal. This was 
but a beginning, and Putnam's persevering researches ought 
to lead to more important discoveries. 1 

The cave known as Salt Cave may be compared to the 
■celebrated Mammoth Cave. It consists like the latter 
of a great number of passages, which can be followed for 
miles. In one of the smaller or larger rooms to which these 
passages lead certain traces of the residence of man were 
recognized. These are the cinders of several hearths, or 
piles of stones built up with a cavity in the centre where, ac- 
cording to a plausible supposition, fagots of chips, or of 
reeds were placed to give light to the cave. In several 
places such fagots have been found tied together with fibres 
of bark. 

In one little dwelling-place, at about three miles from the 
entrance to the cave, 2 Putnam made out the footprints of a 
man shod with sandals, and a little further on he found the 
sandals themselves, made with great skill of interwoven 
reeds. The garments of the cave men were woven of 
the bark of young trees ; some black stripes traced on a 
piece of cloth so prepared, and fragments of fringe also 
found in the cave, bore witness to their taste for dress ; an- 
other piece of stuff curiously mended gave proof of their in- 
dustry. Remains were also picked up of gourds, often 
of considerable size, and two finely worked arrow-points. 
The ground was covered with human excrement, the 
analyses of which suggest that the inhabitants of the cave 
were vegetarians, but excavations have only yielded a few 
fresh-water mussel-shells almost entirely decomposed. The 
discovery of sandals, woven stuffs, the absence of the bones 

1 We will. merely recall several caves, such as those called Saunders' Cave, the 
Haunted Cave, and one situated in Hart County. Although frequent excava- 
tions and disturbances make all surmises problematical, the probability is 
that these caves were never used for human habitation, but were only used as 
graves. 

2 We follow Putnam's account : the distance he gives appears very great, 
unless we suppose the existence of another entrance not yet known. 



;6 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



of animals, and the long habitation of the cave suggest 
a sedentary population devoted to agriculture, and no 
longer depending exclusively for food upon hunting and 
fishing. 

Putnam adds an important remark. A mummy was found 
in 1813 in Short's Cave, 1 and deposited in the Museum of 
Worcester, Massachusetts ; a careful comparison between the 
clothes it wore and the fragments found at Salt Cave allow us 
to class them as identical in character. Here then we have 
a people that buried their dead with care, and whose habitat 
extended over a large area. Putnam adds that certain 
details of the burial point to the great antiquity of the 
mummy found in Short's Cave ; adding that these cave-men 
presented every appearance of a culture very much above 
that of the savages to whom the shell-heaps bear witness, and 
they probably date from a less remote antiquity. 

When caves were not at hand, when these primeval Am- 
ericans saw before them nothing but vast bare plains, shel- 
terless prairies, impenetrable forest, haunted by wild animals, 
these first Americans, like the men met with by the Spaniards, 
and like those who still wander in the deserts of Arizona or 
of New Mexico, probably inhabited wigwams, put together 
in a few hours (fig. 21) and destroyed no less rapidly, when 
the nomad habits of their owners or the pursuit of game led 
them to a distance. Colonel McKee, who was one of the 
first to reach California when the country was first occupied 
by the United States government, tells us that at the ap- 
proach of summer the tribes of the Northwest burnt their 
skins or reed huts in which they had spent the winter, so as 
to destroy the vermin with which they swarmed. Most of 
the men of these tribes went about nearly naked ; the women 
and the girls of marriageable age wore only a little petticoat 
reaching from the waist to the knees, the bosom remaining 
uncovered at every age. 

The arrangement of the hut doubtless varied, as it does 

1 Short's Cave is eight miles from Mammoth Cave, which is often wrongly 
cited as •the scene of the discovery of this mummy. 




77 



78 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



now, among the different races and tribes. The Comanches 
set upright the poles which were to keep the tent in position ; 
the Lipans and Navajos 1 tied them in a conical form ; the 
Apaches arranged them in an elliptical oval. 2 Each tribe had 
its own special form of wigwam, transmitted from its ances- 
tors, and, perpetuated by custom, they remained permanently 
characteristic. Even now, when an abandoned camp is met 
with, the tribe it belonged to can often be easily ascertained 
by an examination of the huts. The poles were sometimes 
covered with branches or with skins, sometimes with grass or 
flat stones. The huts were from twelve to eighteen feet in 
diameter, by four to eight feet high. Sometimes the ground 
was hollowed out, so as to give the family a little more room. 
A triangular opening closed with a strip of cloth or of skin, 
completed the dwelling. Other tribes contented themselves 
with digging a hole in the earth and covering it with branches. 
Some of the Indians of New Mexico were still more savage. 
Naked and horribly dirty, they wandered during the great 
heat of the summer near the water-courses, taking temporary 
shelter now in a ravine, now in a cave, a precarious refuge, 
and for which they had to dispute possession with wild 
beasts. In winter they built up a circular wall, about two 
feet high, with stones and branches of trees. This wretched 
dwelling could never be closed, a roof of any kind being con- 
trary to their superstitious notions, and there huddled to- 
gether they tried to protect themselves from the extremes 
of cold. 3 The dwellings of the people inhabiting the central 
districts of Mexico consisted of a few poles, bound together 
with creepers of vigorous growth native to the tropics, and 
covered in with palm leaves. In the colder mountain regions 

1 James Simpson: "Journal of a Military Reconnaissance from Santa Fe to 
the Navajo Country," Philadelphia, 1852. 

2 Bartlett : " Personal Narrative of Exploration and Incidents in Texas, New 
Mexico, California, Sonora, and Chihuahua," New York, 1854. 

3 Venegas : " Noticia de la California y desu Conquista," Madrid, 1757 : "Le 
abitazione le piu comuni sono certe chiuse circolari di sassi schiolti ed amucchi- 
ati, le quali hanno cinque piedi di diametro e meno di due d'altezza." Clav- 
igero, V St. del la California," vol. I., p. 119, Venezia, 1789. 



KITCHEN-MIDDENS AND CA VES. 



79 



the walls were formed of the trunks, firmly bound together 
with cane, and covered inside and out with a thick coating 
of clay. 

Such were some of the tribes met with by the conquerors, 
and such doubtless had they been for many generations be- 
fore the arrival of the Spaniards. Side by side with them 
lived others more interesting to the historian and the philoso- 
pher, and of these it is now time to speak. The mystery in 
which they are shrouded adds to the fascination exerted by 
a mere view of the ruins bearing witness to their presence 
in the past. 



CHAPTER III. 



THE MOUND BUILDERS. 

The existence of artificial mounds in the valleys of the 
Mississippi, the Ohio, and the Missouri, with those formed 
by their tributaries, escaped the notice of the first pioneers 
in America, who were altogether absorbed with the search 
for valuable booty. Garcilasso de Vega 1 and the anonymous 
chronicler of the unfortunate expedition of Hernandez de 
Soto 2 make, it is true, some allusion to them ; but it was 
not until many years later, when a regular trade was estab- 
lished with the Indians 3 living beyond the Alleghany Moun- 
tains, that any exact information was obtained with regard 
to these rude but imposing monuments — sole witness of a 
life and customs which remain almost unknown. 

Carver in 1776 and Harte in 1791, were the first to take 
any special notice of these mounds ; Breckenridge, who wrote 
of them in 1814, 4 tells us that they astonished him as much 
as did the monuments of Egypt ; and later Messrs. Squierand 
Davis checked earlier accounts by the more exact methods of 

1 " History of Florida," published at Lisbon in 1605, at Madrid in 1723, and 
translated several times into other languages. 

2 " Velacao verdadeira dos trabalhos que ho gobernador don Fernando de Soto 
et certos fidalgos Portuguesos passaraono descobrimiento da provincia da Flor- 
ida," translated into French and published in Paris in 1685; translated into Eng- 
lish and published for the Hakluyt Society in 185 1. Consult also, in the Ter- 
naux collection, the account given by the chaplain of this expedition, which 
took place in 1539. 

The Grenville collection in the British Museum has a rare copy of the first 
edition of this work. It is a small octavo in black letter. 

3 They themselves had given to theYazoothe characteristic name of River of 
the Ancient Ruins, on account of the mounds in its vicinity. 

4 " Views of Louisiana," Pittsburg, 1814. 

So 



THE MOUND BUILDERS. 



Si- 



modern science. Between 1845 an< ^ 1847, more than two 
hundred mounds were excavated by them, and the descrip- 
tion they give, published by the Smithsonian Institution, is 
still our best guide with regard to these remains. 1 This 
publication gave a fresh impulse to investigations. Expe- 
ditions undertaken on every side and carried out with zeal, 
resulted in the finding of the most diverse and curious 
objects. Most interesting monographs and careful studies 
were published after the expeditions, and it is our task to 
make known the results of both. 

The mounds are artificial hillocks of earth, nearly always 
constructed with a good deal of precision. They are of vari- 
ous forms, round, oval, square, more rarely polygonal or tri- 
angular. Their height varies from a few inches to more 
than ninety feet, 2 and their diameter from three to about a 
thousand feet. Those supposed to be intended for the per- 
formance of religious rites end in a platform, which is 
reached by a skilfully planned flight of steps ; none of these 
however are known north of Mexico ; others can be 
climbed with difficulty. Some rise from the summit of 
a hill, others stretch away irregularly in the plains, often 
for a distance of several miles ; others again we find sym- 
metrically arranged and enclosed within walls, built of earth, 
as are the mounds themselves. All those of the United 
States, however, whatever, their form or size, present very 
remarkable analogies with each other, and evidently 
belonged to men in about the same stage of culture, 
submitting to similar influences and actuated by similar 
motives. We find these mounds in the valleys 3 already 
mentioned, and in those of Wyoming ; of the rivers Susque- 

1 " Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley." Smith. Cont. to Knowl- 
edge, Philadelphia, 1847, vol. I. Arch. Americana, vol. I. 

2 Dr. Habel ("Smithsonian Contributions," vol. XXII.) mentions a conical 
mound 300 or 400 feet high near Quito, but grave doubts are entertained as to 
its origin and artificial character. 

3 According to Dr. Foster's calculations, the Mississippi Valley includes an 
area of 2,455,000 square miles, measuring 30 0 longitude by 23 0 latitude. 
"Mississippi Valley," Chicago, 1869, p. 31. 



32 



PRE-HIST0R1C AMERICA. 



hanna, Yazoo, and Tennessee; on the banks of Lake Ontario^ 
as far as the St. Lawrence ; in the western districts of the 
state of New York ; in the states of Missouri, Mississippi, 
Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Nebraska, and Louisiana; the 
valleys of the Arkansas and of the Red River. Near 
Carthage, Alabama, a remarkable group of truncated mounds 
is described, surrounded by embankments which are gradu- 
ally disappearing beneath the plough. In the South, how- 
ever, the mounds appear to be less ancient than on the Ohio 
and Mississippi ; as if the builders had been gradually driven 
back by an invading enemy from the North. 

Similar tumuli stretch all along the coast of the Gulf of 
Mexico, from Florida to Texas. In the latter state and in 
South Carolina, especially, occur conical mounds, forming a 
transition in shape between this kind of structure and the 
teocallis 1 of Mexico, in which a temple crowns a truncated 
pyramid, in this case built of stone. 2 In Yucatan and Chi- 
apas, artificial mounds form the foundation of some remark- 
able monuments that we shall have to describe, and which 
were already old at the time of the Spanish Conquest. 3 
Wells relates that in Honduras, even in the forests through 
which a path must be cut axe in hand, the Baqueanos 4 find 

1 The Mexicans acknowledged a God, Tent or Theot\ hence the name of 
Teocallis, the house of God. 

2 Brasseur de Bourbourg speaks of a great number of tumuli in the province 
of Vera Paz, presenting, he says, a striking resemblance to those of the Mis-, 
sissippi Valley. They are of reddish earth, and the Indians call them Cakhay, 
or the red houses (" Histoire des Nations civilize'es," t. I., p. 15). 

3 The whole central region is strewn with mounds bearing ruined buildings. 
(Bancroft, vol. IV., p. 200). Such artificial mounds are met with at Uxmal, 
Nohpat, Kabah, and Labnah. The Mayas always .raised a mound as a founda- 
tion for their buildings; if a natural eminence existed, they took pains to 
enlarge it. Near the port of Silan two mounds are described on which are 
seen extensive ruins (Stephens : " Incidents of Travel in Yucatan," New York, 
1858, vol. II., p. 427). Close to the Rio Layarto are two pyramids, on the 
summit of which now grow lofty tufts of trees (Baril, "La Mexique," Douai, 
1862, p. 129). Monte Cuyo, near Yalahao, which is visible far out at sea, was 
spoken of even by the old navigator Dampier as the work of man. 

4 Wells called them Vaqneros, and on his authority we had used that name ; 
but -from a communication that Mr. Ch. Barbier has been good enough to. 



THE MOUND BUILDERS. 



83 



mounds often of remarkable height. Each of these mounds 
yielded pieces of pottery, clumsy in construction, but of 
curious shape and ornamentation. Mounds are said to 
occur on the shores of the Great Salt Lake, in Utah, and in 
Arizona. They also occur, though of smaller dimensions, in 
California and Oregon, in the valleys formed by the Colo- 
rado and its tributaries, and Taylor pretends to have counted 
them by thousands from an eminence overlooking the Mer- 
ced River. Their number diminishes as the Atlantic Ocean 
is approached. Rare beyond the Rocky Mountains, they 
are still more so in British America. 

The number, form, and disposition of these mounds, often 
so strange in their design, so original in their execution, 
with the objects brought to light by excavations, are, we 
repeat, characteristic, and such as forbid their being classed 
indiscriminately with the burial mounds common to all parts 
of the w T orld. It is amongst these latter that we must class 
the mounds travellers tell of in British Columbia, Vancouver 
Island, Peru, Brazil, and the pampas of Patagonia. Father 
Acuna tells of countless tumuli in the Terraba plains of 
Costa Rica, the centre of a once numerous population. 1 
Other tumuli, no less numerous, bear witness to ancient 
history in the desert stretching all along the Mosquito coast 
of Central America. 2 Near the Balize River 3 mounds raised 
in honor of the dead and surrounded with circles of stones 
recall the cromlechs 4 of the old world. Lastly, Dr. Ze- 
ballos gives us a description of a tumulus near Campana, 

address to us we learn that the Vaqueros, rulers of the vast herds of the country, 
do not make these researches. They may far more reasonably be attributed to 
the Baqueanos, who served as guides to the explorers. 

1 Harper 's Magazine, vol. XX., p. 319. 

3 Boyle, "A Ride Across the Continent," vol. I., p. 296. 

3 G. Henderson: "An Account of the British Settlement of Honduras," 
London, 1811. Frobel : " Seven Years' Travel in Central America," London, 
1859. 

4 A cromlech is the name given by archaeologists to a heap composed of two 
or more upright stones with a flat stone laid across them, marking a tomb. 
Cromlechs are to be met with throughout the British Isles, in France, and other 
European countries, and in some parts of Asia and America. 



3 4 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



Buenos Ayres, 1 which is over six feet high and measures 
about two hundred and sixty feet long and one hundred 
and fifteen feet across. Excavations resulted in the dis- 
covery of twenty-seven skeletons ; round about them lay 
arrow-points, stone hatchets, stones for slings, and a con- 
siderable quantity of bones of animals and fragments of 
pottery. 

In other places explorers tell of piles of stones. These 
piles may probably date from much more recent periods, for 
even in our own day the Indians have a custom of adding a 
stone when they pass near the spots which tradition has long 
pointed out as the burial-places of ancient chiefs, or for some 
other reason. It is in this way that the Ozark hills have be- 
come covered with cairns or murgers. 2 They were looked 
upon as posts of observation, but their number alone is 
enough to confute this hypothesis, and excavations have of- 
ten yielded human bones, leaving no doubt as to the real 
purpose of some of the mounds. 3 

We meet with such cairns again in Honduras, near San 
Salvador. Three miles from Toolesborough, Iowa, there are 
mounds actually built of granite boulders taken from the bed 
of the river. But it is in their style of construction alone 
that they differ from other mounds ; in them also excavations 
have brought to light charcoal, worked stone, and the 
charred bones of animals. 

In several states of the far West the mounds represent 
mammals, birds, and reptiles ; indeed some bold architects 
have not hesitated to attempt to imitate the human body. 

Ohio appears to have been one of the centres of mound- 
building. It is true that we meet with fewer mounds of 
strange form, but their total number is considerable. It can- 
not be estimated at less than 10,000, of which 1,500 are en- 
closed, and it has been calculated that the total length of all 
the mounds raised by man in this one State would be no less 

1 Rev. a 7 ' Anthropologic, 1879. 

2 Habel : " Investigations in Central and South America," Smithsonian Con- 
tributions, vol. XXII. 

3 American Antiquarian, July, 1879, p. 59. 



THE MOUND BUILDERS. 



85 



than 306 miles. 1 The whole of Missouri, especially the south- 
east portion known as the Swamp region 2 is also covered 
with countless tumuli, often grouped with evident design. In 
the state of New York, there are 250 enclosures resembling 
our modern fortifications. 3 In an area of fifty miles, on the 
borders of the states of Iowa and Illinois, 2,500 mounds have 
been made out without counting earthern inclosures. 4 
Everywhere a much greater number than this have been 
destroyed by colonists and farmers, caring little in their hard 
struggle for existence for those who preceded them. Others, 
lost in vast deserts or in the impenetrable forests covering a 
considerable area in the two Americas, are still unknown 
to us. 

The extent of the territory occupied by the builders of 
mounds in Central America, with the number of mounds 
erected by them, proves the great length of their exist- 
ence. The importance of some of the works, which, accord- 
ing to the judgment of competent engineers, it would have 
taken several thousand of our workmen, provided with all 
the resources of our grand modern industries, 5 months to 
execute, bears witness to an organized community and a 
powerful hierarchy. Lastly, the regularity of the buildings 
with the excellence of the execution of the objects found in 
them, prove to what an extent artistic feeling was developed 
amongst the makers of the mounds, whose existence has so 
unexpectedly been revealed to us by excavations. 

It is with the relics of an unknown and remote past that 

1 Bancroft, vol. IV., p. 752. Pidgeon : "Ant. Researches," New York, 1858. 
Lewis & Clark : " Travels to the Source of the Missouri River," London, 1814. 

2 The Swamp region covers an area of 4,000 square miles, and includes six 
counties and portions of three others. The soil is formed of recent alluvium 
covering tertiary beds of gravel, clay, and marl filled with fossils. (W. P. 
Potter: "Arch. Remains in S. E. Missouri," St. Louis Acad, of Sciences,, 
1880.) 

3 Squier : "Ant. of the State of New York," Buffalo, 1851. "Report, Pea- 
body Museum," 1880, vol. II. , p. 721. 

4 American Antiquarian , July, 1879, P- 59 et se( l- 

5 The builders had no beasts of burden. These large structures were, there- 
fore, built by man unaided. 



86 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



we have to deal, and we will begin with the mounds ; but 
the confusion in which the different forms they assume are 
mixed together, adds singularly to the difficulty of the task. 
Cones and pyramids are enclosed within a sort of breast- 
work ; mounds supposed to be intended for the offering up 
of sacrifices are connected with tumuli ; side by side with 
those representing animals rise polygonal or triangular 
mounds. Dr. Andrews 1 mentions in a plan of Athens 
county, Ohio, a collection of twenty-three mounds, seven 
of which, according to him, were intended as fortifications 
and sixteen as burial-places. The loftiest is 40 feet high 




Fig. 22. — Triangular mounds. 

by 170 in diameter. 2 In Pike county, Pennsylvania, a per- 
fect square is to be seen enclosed within a circle constructed 
with no less regularity ; at Portsmouth, four concentric cir- 
cles intersected by wide avenues perfectly true to the car- 
dinal points. The mounds near St. Louis formed three sides 
of a parallelogram about 328 yards long by 215 yards wide. 
The fourth side was shut in by three smaller mounds. 3 

1 "Report, Peabody Museum," 1877. 

2 The content of this mound is estimated at 437,742 cubic feet, and as no 
signs of excavations are to be seen in the neighborhood, one can but suppose 
that this mass of earth was brought from a distance. 

3 Breckenridge : "Views of Louisiana." St. Louis is sometimes called 
Mound City on account of the number of mounds which rise, or rather did rise, 
in its neighborhood. , 



THE MOUND BUILDERS. 



87 



According to De Hass, the mounds of Illinois form quite 
a town, a vast and mysterious series of monuments. He 
tells us that he was surprised to find nothing but sepulchres 
on the other side of the Mississippi, whereas everywhere else 
the groups of ruins were associated with walls of circum- 
vallation. Conant 1 tells of a collection of mounds on the 
Root River, about twenty miles from its junction with the 
Mississippi (fig. 22). The chief mound measures twelve feet 
in height by thirty-six feet in diameter. It is situated in the 
centre of a circle, of which traces can still be made out. The 
ridges forming the three sides of the triangle are of equal 
length — 144 feet ; their diameter is twelve feet, and their 
height three, four, and five feet respectively. It is remark- 
able that these heights, taken together, equal the height of 
the central mound, and that when they are multiplied to- 
gether the length of the sides of the triangle is obtained. 
This is doubtless an accidental coincidence, though several 
earthworks are mentioned of square or rectangular form, in 
which a similar relation is alleged to exist between the 
height and lengths of the mounds forming them. 

As they have been subjected to vertical denudation for an 
uncounted number of years, it is certain that any numerical 
relations existing at present are different from those which 
originally characterized such mounds. 

These facts will show how very difficult, not to say impos- 
sible, is any classification ; we will, however, follow that of 
Squier; for, in spite of some too apparent inaccuracies, it 
has the advantage of simplifying our task and supplying an 
approximate grouping, each class of which will be success- 
ively taken up alterward. They are : 1, Defensive works ; 
2, Sacred enclosures; 3, Temples; 4, Altar mounds; 5, 
Sepulchral mounds ; and 6, Mounds representing animals. 
Short (" North Americans," p. 81) gives a slightly different 
classification, as follows : 

1 " Footprints of Vanished Races," St. Louis, 1879, p. 30. 



38 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



i For Defence. 
I. — ENCLOSURES < For Religious Purposes. 

( Miscellaneous. 

f Of Sacrifice. 
TT | For Temple-sites. 

H.-MOUNDS . ^ Of Sepulchre. 

I Of Observation. 

To these different lists perhaps may be added mounds 
built of adobes, or unburnt brick, which have crumbled to 
dust and are the remains of successive dwellings 

The whole of the space separating the Alleghanies from 
the Rocky Mountains affords a succession of entrenched 
camps, fortifications generally made of earth. There were 
used ramparts, stockades, and trenches 1 near many eminences, 
and nearly every junction of two large rivers. These works 
bear witness to the intelligence of the race, which has so 
long been looked upon as completely barbarous and wild, 
and an actual system of defences in connection with each 
other can in some cases be made out, with observatories on 
adjacent heights, and concentric ridges of earth for the pro- 
tection of the entrances. War was evidently an important 
subject of thought with the Mound Builders. All the de- 
fensive remains occur in the neighborhood of water-courses, 
and the best proof of the skill shown in the choice of sites is 
shown by the number of flourishing cities, such as Cincin- 
nati, St. Louis, Newark, Portsmouth, Frankfort, New Mad- 
rid, and many others, which have risen in the same situations 
in modern times. 2 

1 The ditch instead of skirting the rampart outside, and thus multiplying the 
obstacles in the way of an assailant, is generally placed inside. Professor An- 
drews quotes, however, an external moat at Lancaster (Fairfield County, Ohio), 
but he adds that it is an isolated example. " Report, Peabody Museum," 1877. 
If a stockade was placed on the rampart, the ditch would add an obstacle to at- 
tempts at digging a way in, while if placed outside it would facilitate such an 
attack. 

2 " The same places," says Dr. Lapham, speaking of the mounds of Wiscon- 
sin, " which were the seat of aboriginal population, are being now selected as 
the sites of embryo towns and villages by men of different race." " Smith- 
sonian. Contributions," vol, VII., p. 64. 



THE MOUND BUILDERS. 



8 9 



Bourneville, twelve miles from Chillicothe, is one of the 
most curious fortified enclosures of Ohio. It occupies the 
summit of a steep hill ; the walls — a rare enough instance — 
are of stone, built up without cement, 1 presenting a striking 
resemblance with the ancient pre-historic forts of Belgium 
and the north of France. The closing ridge measures more 
than two miles, and three entrances can still be made out, 
defended by mounds, which made access more difficult. In 
many parts, especially near the entrances, the walls seem to 
have been subjected to the action of a fierce fire, which has 
actually baked the surface. Basins artificially dug out sup- 
plied the inhabitants with the water they required. On part 
of the rampart grow gigantic trees, supposed to be of great 
age. 

Round about these trees can be made out rotting trunks, 
the remains of earlier generations which have slowly perished 
after gaining their maturity. According to some archaeolo- 
gists, centuries have passed away since the forest usurped 
the place of the abode of man ; others with more probability 
think these trees are less venerable than is generally sup- 
posed. In Wisconsin, says Dr. Lapham, 2 54 to 130 years are 
required for a tree to increase one foot in diameter. Among 
those actually living very few exceed three or four feet in 
diameter. Lapham therefore concludes that they cannot 
date from much earlier than the sixteenth century, and they 
are probably considerably younger. 

Fort Hill affords a still better example of these earth- 
works. This fortress, for such it may justly be called, rises 
from an eminence overlooking the little river of Paint Creek. 

1 The Mound Builders used the materials at hand. When stones were abun- 
dant, they piled them up with earth to make their walls, but these stones are 
never quarried or dressed, nor are they ever cemented with any mortar ; several 
instances may be quoted, notably a stone fort on the Duck River, near Man- 
chester, Tennessee, in which the walls are of unworked stones, detached from 
neighboring rocks. At the entrance two mounds can be made out, which are 
supposed to have been posts of observation. 

2 "The Antiquities of Wisconsin," "Smith. Cont.," vol. VII. Southall, 
" Recent Origin of Man," p. 583. 



9 o 



PRE-H1ST0RIC AMERICA. 



The walls enclose an area of 1 1 1 acres. Above the stream, 
which formed a natural defence, they are hardly four feet 
high, but everywhere else the height is six feet, and they are 
some thirty-five feet thick. Several openings made entrance 
easy. One of them leads to an enclosure which was prob- 
ably square, but its walls have been in a great measure de- 
stroyed ; no trench or ditch protects them, and traces of a 
great fire can easily be discerned. In this second enclosure 
Squier places the dwellings of the inhabitants, built of un- 
burnt bricks, or perhaps mere huts covered with grass, 




Fig. 23.— Fort Hill, Ohio. 

branches of trees, or the skins of animals killed in the chase. 
Within the fortifications can be distinguished two enclosures 
— one semicircular, the other circular. These were probably 
places sacred to the religious rites, or to the councils of the 
chiefs. All this is, however, mere conjecture ; for the cus- 
toms, ceremonies, and mode of government of these men 
can only be inferred from the very scanty historical data 
relating to tribes dwelling much further south. 

One of the most curious works 1 of this kind is situated in 
Clarke County, Ohio. It is a fort covering an area of only 



1 Cox, " A remarkable ancient stone fort in Clarke County, Ohio." Am. Ass., 
Hartford, Connecticut, 1S74. 



THE MOUND BUILDERS. 



91 



eight or ten acres, and built at the top of a hill washed on 
the south by the Ohio, and on the north by a wide, deep 
stream, Fourteen Mile Creek, which flows into the Ohio, a 
short distance beyond. This bill, which is of conical form, 
rises 280 feet above the river, and on that side presents 
almost perpendicular walls, except at one point, where there 
is a pretty wide fault, the importance of defending which 
the builders of the fort were not slow to see. They pro- 
tected it therefore with a wall, nowhere less than seventy- 
five feet high, built of rough stones arranged without mortar 
or cement of any kind. Inside, the traces can still be made 
out of a number of conical mounds and of a wide and deep 
ditch. These works must not be confounded with others 
situated in Ross county, and known under the name of 
Clark's Works. The latter include a parallelogram 275 feet 
by 177; and on the right of this parallelogram a square cov- 
ering an area of sixteen acres. 1 The sides are eighty-two 
feet long, and in the middle of each of them an entrance can 
be made out, defended by a little mound. Inside, accord- 
ing to a custom to which we shall often have occasion to 
refer, rose several mounds of different sizes. 

Many of these works are connected with each other with 
a skill which may well surprise us. Squier thinks he recog- 
nizes a continuous system of fortifications, arranged w r ith 
great intelligence, stretching diagonally across the state of 
Ohio, from the sources of the Alleghany and of the Susque- 
hanna in the state of New York to the Wabash River. 
Along the Big Harpeth River, Tennessee, earthworks are 
very numerous. 2 The line of the Great Miami River, one of 
the tributaries of the Ohio, is defended by three forts : one 
at its mouth, a second at Colerain, and a third at Hamilton. 
Beyond this last point other works extend for a distance of 
six miles along the river, protecting the tributaries of the 

1 The amount of earth used in making these earthworks is estimated at three 
millions of cubic feet. Whittlesey. 4 ' On the Weapons and Character of the 
Mound Builders," Boston Soc. of Natural History, vol. I., p. 473. 

2 Dr. Jones' " Explorations of the Aboriginal Remains of Tennessee," 
Smithsonian Contributions, vol. XXII., p. 4. 



9 2 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



Great Miami on the north and west, or ranged in succession 
as far as Dayton and Piqua, so as to complete the line of de- 
fence. All these points are connected with each other by 
isolated mounds, mostly set upon hills commanding an ex- 
tensive view. 1 These are supposed, with reason, to have been 
used as sentinel stations from which to watch the move- 
ments of the enemy or to transmit pre-arranged signals. 2 

Fort Ancient is forty-two miles from Cincinnati. Professor 
Locke, who was the first to describe it, estimates the quantity 
of earth used in its construction at over 628,000 cubic yards. 
It is built on the left bank of the Little Miami, 230 feet 
above the level of the stream, and forms behind the line of 
defences, to which we have referred, a central citadel. The 
length of the enclosing ridges is not less than three or four 
miles, and the walls, where they have resisted the ravages of 
time, are nearly twenty feet high. Hosea has lately re- 
peated an observation often made, that the outline of these 
walls made a rough sketch of the continents of America. 
If this be so it can be but a purely accidental coincidence 
quite unworthy of any serious consideration. The Rev. 
S. D. Peet, taking up an entirely different point of view, sees 
in these outlines a struggle between two huge serpents, 3 
another flight of imagination difficult to follow. What is 
really of importance is the great amount of work done by the 
builders, and the skill they showed in their works of defence. 

We must not omit to mention the ruins of Aztalan 4 
situated on an arm of the Rock River, Wisconsin. They 

2 The great Miamisburgh mound on the Ohio is one of the best examples we 
can cite. It is sixty-eight feet high and the circumference of the base is not 
less than 862 feet. (Short : " The North Americans of Antiquity," p. 52). 
Lookout Mountain, near Circleville, with its lofty mound, must have served 
the same purpose. 

2 Force : "A quelle Race appartenaient les Mound Builders" ; Cong, des 
Amer., Luxembourg, 1S77, vol. I., p. 125. Rev. S. D. Peet: "The Military 
Architecture," Am. antiq., Jan. 1881. 

3 American Antiquarian, April, 1878, March, 1880. 

4 Milwaukee Advertiser , 1837 ; Silliman's American Journal of Science, vol. 
XLIV. ; Lapham : "Antiquities of Wisconsin," p. 41, plates, XXXIV. and 
XXXV. 



THE MOUND BUILDERS. 



93 



were discovered in 1836 by Hyer, who gave them the name 
they bear in memory of an old tradition of the Mexicans, 
who make out that their ancestors came from Aztalan 1 in the 
North. The characteristic feature of these ruins is an en- 
closure of earthworks forming three sides of an irregular 
parallelogram, of which the rivers shut in the fourth 
side. They present considerable analogy to those of 
Ohio, but we do not find in them the regularity which is 
generally so striking in the latter. The angles are not right 
angles ; the northern side is 600 feet long, the southern 684, 
while the western wall is more than double that length. 
The width of the walls is nearly twenty-five feet, but they have 
crumbled away to so great an extent that it is impossible to 
decide upon their original height. The present height 
varies from about one foot to three yards and a half. 

We must note one rare and interesting peculiarity; the 
walls are reinforced at equal distances with projecting curves 
or bastions. Finally, at the southwest angle there are two 
little enclosures which we may if we like call outposts. All 
these walls were constructed of earth mixed with grass and 
rushes, and then subjected in various parts to great heat, 
doubtless with a view to strengthen their cohesive proper- 
ties. This is probably the reason why various travellers have 
stated that the walls of Aztalan were built of brick. We 
can now affirm to the contrary. 

In walking round the inside of the enclosure it is still 
easy to make out a considerable number of mounds. Some 
are truncated pyramids rising in successive tiers ; others are 
tumuli. One of the latter has been excavated and two skele- 
tons were brought to light. It was observed that the 
corpses had been placed in a sitting or doubled-up posture. 

1 The name of Aztalan is derived from two Mexican words : Atl, water, and 
An, near to. In Mexican traditions Aztalan, Culhuacan, and Aquilasco were 
the towns the people of Mexico inhabited before their migration in the direction 
of Anahuac. (Bancroft, vol. V., pp. 156, 305.) According to the Abbe 
Brasseur de Bourbourg, Aztalan is situated northwest of California. (" Hist, 
des Nat. Civilisees," vol. II., p. 292.) We may observe that nothing is more 
uncertain than such tradition. 



94 



P RE-HI S TOPIC A ME RICA . 



The bones unfortunately crumbled to dust at the very mo- 
ment of discover}-, so that no satisfactory examination was 
possible. 

Most archaeologists consider Aztalan to have been a 
fortified post. Lapham alone remarks, and his observa- 
tion is not without justice, that the situation of these build- 
ings, overlooked as it is from every side, would in that case 
have been very badly chosen, and at complete variance with 
all the traditions of the builders. In any case, whether the 
ruins be those of a town or merely of a fortified enclosure, 
they must have been quickly abandoned, for excavations 
have yielded no remains proving the long residence of 
man. 

Putnam, one of the most learned of American archaeolo- 
gists, describes 1 at Greenwood, near Lebanon, Tennessee, 
some earthworks forming a true fortification. He was able 
to make out the position of three entrances, and inside the en- 
closure numerous sepulchral tumuli and a lofty mound form- 
ing a truncated cone with very steep walls measuring fifteen 
feet high by one hundred and fifty feet in diameter at the base. 
At two different heights excavations have yielded calcined 
stones, cinders, and burnt bones, evident proofs of huge fires, 
either for offering sacrifices or for funeral rites. The dwell- 
ings of the men who made these earthworks must have been 
circular huts, of which some traces can still be made out. 
The burial-places were generally at a distance from the 
homes, but with touching sentiment the bodies of children 
were interred close to the hearths of their parents. Putnam 
considers the people of Greenwood to have been one of the 
most forward races inhabiting North America. They tilled 
the ground ; they did not burn their dead as did the men of 
Ohio ; their pottery and their ornaments are truly artistic, 
and we find amongst their relics copper from Lake Superior 
and marine shells. Seven perforated pearls were picked up 
in the grave of a child, so that trade was not unknown 
to them. All this speaks of progressing culture but not 



1 " Report, Peabody Museum," 1S7S, vol. II., p. 339. 



THE MOUND BUILDERS. 



95 



of any thing beyond the standard of the modern Indian. 

Sandy-Woods settlement, 1 Missouri, includes nine tumuli 
and a considerable number of circular excavations surrounded 
with walls and with an external trench. The present height 
of the walls varies from two feet to three and one half feet, 
and they are seven feet wide at the base. The trench is 
three feet at its deepest part, and seven feet wide. This 
trench communicates on the east with a marsh ; so it has 
been supposed that it was intended to supply the inhabi- 
tants with the water they required, and that the wall was 
intended rather as a protection from inundations than as a 
defence against invaders. 

The most important of the tumuli of which we have just 
spoken is of rectangular form. The northern and southern 
faces are two hundred and forty-six feet long, the eastern 
and western only one hundred and eighteen feet. The 
height is more than sixteen feet on the north, and nineteen 
feet on the south. The top forms a platform fairly easy of 
access, which measures one hundred and eight feet by 
fifty-one, which platform is covered by numerous fragments 
of badly baked clay, somewhat like bricks of coarse manu- 
facture, and nearly all of them bearing impressions of grass 
or straw, mixed with the adobe before baking. Excavations 
of this mound yielded no results. Those in other mounds 
have been more fruitful, especially those in two circular 
mounds devoted to burial purposes, which must have con- 
tained from one to two hundred skeletons in each stratum. 
The first layer of skeletons was arranged on a level with the 
original soil, the second about a foot above it. They were 
so much decayed that an exact statement of their numbers 
cannot be made. Some of these skeletons had been doubled 
up, others were in a squatting posture, but the greater num- 
ber lay stretched on their backs or stomachs, or lay on their 
sides. It has been remarked that the fact that the earth 
with which they were covered did not belong to the spot in 

1 W. P. Potter : " Arch. Remains in S. E. Missouri." Saint Louis Acad, of 
Sciences, 1880. 



9 6 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



which they were found, but must have been brought there 
from a distance (not necessarily great) bears witness to the 
respect shown by these men to their dead, and the im- 
portance they attached to funeral rites. Vessels and broken 
pieces of pottery placed near the corpses were numerous ; 
from eight hundred to one thousand fragments have been 
collected. 

As at Greenwood circular trenches marked the site of 
dwellings. They are about two feet deep by twenty-eight 
feet in diameter. The presence, in some particular spots, of 
heaps of burnt clay, cinders, fragments of charcoal, and the 
calcined bones of animals, indicate the hearths. They were 
generally in the centre of the habitation, and, as is the cus- 
tom among numerous savage tribes, the smoke escaped 
through a hole made in the roof. 

All the trenches of which we have just spoken were grouped 
irregularly within the enclosure. Every one chose the site 
that best suited his convenience, needs, or pleasure, and 
there erected his home. 

On the branches of Little River are many settlements, in 
general resembling those we have just described. There is an 
elliptical mound surrounded by a wall and trench. This 
mound measures one hundred and ten by seventy feet. It is 
eleven feet high. Farther on in the Lewis Prairie rises the so- 
called Mound group where the traces of a double wall have 
been made out. A religious society utilized one of the 
mounds of Lewis Prairie on which to build a church, and at 
that time numerous bones appear to have been dispersed, so 
that Professor Swallow's later excavations were barren of 
results. In other places are mounds, banks sometimes of great 
length, intended to defend the approaches to a river or a 
spring, and excavations marking the sites of ancient habi- 
tations. 

In fact, in many different places the earthworks of man 
have resisted time and preserved to the present day proofs 
of his existence. 

If we leave the United States we may refer to a series of 



THE MOUND BUILDERS. 



97 



trenches extending for several miles near Juigalpa in Nica- 
ragua. 1 Their arrangement is peculiar (fig. 24). The gen- 
eral width varies from three to four yards, and at equal dis- 
tances occur oval reservoirs, the axis of which reaches about 
twenty-six yards. 

Two and four mounds occur alternately in each of these 
reservoirs. We are ignorant alike of the use of these works 
and of the people who executed them. 

It was desirable to mention these trenches, which are 
different from any thing else of the kind reported from Cen- 
tral America. We shall not, however, multiply useless repe- 
titions, and we will content ourselves with adding that if 
fortifications are less common southwest of the Missouri, 
they are numerous enough in Iowa, Wisconsin, and Indiana. 
In the last-named state and in Illinois their form is gen- 



FlG. 24. — Trenches at Juigalpa, Nicaragua. 

erally square, in Iowa and Missouri it is often triangular; 
but everywhere we notice great similarity in their structure 
and the occurrence of a central mound. On all the rivers 
which flow from the south and empty into Lake Erie or 
Ontario numerous forts are met with ; but they are irregular, 
and enclose none of the mounds so characteristic of the 
others we have described. 

The great amount of labor involved in the erection of 
their fortifications, bearing in mind the resources the builders 
had at their command, justifies us in looking upon the 
mounds as intended to be permanent, and probably, in case 
of the larger ones, as having been constructed by slow 
degrees. General Harrison, one of the early Presidents of 
the United States, was indeed justified in the opinion he 
expressed in speaking to the Historical Society of Ohio, 2 

1 Boyle : "A Ride Across the Continent," vol. I., p. 212. 

2 Transactions Hist. Soc. of Ohio, vol. I., p. 263. 



PRE-HIS TOPIC A ME RICA . 



that these fortifications were not erected for a defence from 
a sudden invasion, for the height of the walls and the solidity 
of their construction show that the danger they were to 
guard against was ever present. General Harrison added : 
" The three mounds that I have examined, those of Marietta, 
Cincinnati, and that at the mouth of the Great Miami, par- 
ticularly the latter, have a military character stamped upon 
them which cannot be mistaken. War and struggle have ever 
been the sad heritage of humanity, and the New World was 
not likely to be more exempt from them than the Old." 

It is no less certain that similar works were far from 
uncommon among the Indians. They were described by 
all the earlier explorers, notably by the chronicler of De 
Soto's expedition, who saw them in the South actually occu- 
pied by the existing tribes. An early traveller tells us that 
he noted one general mode of fortification, which was a cir- 
cumvallation formed of palisades from twelve to fifteen feet 
high, with openings through which the besieged could shoot 
their arrows. In 1855 an intrenchment was noticed erected 
on the banks of the Missouri, near Council Bluffs, by an 
Indian tribe, the Arikarees. This intrenchment, in accord- 
ance with a constant tradition of their race, was made of 
trunks of trees piled one upon the other. 1 Catlin describes 
a large Mandan village, in which the inhabitants were pro-, 
tected with palisades. 2 The forts attacked by Champlain in 
1609 were defended by stakes driven into the ground and 
bound together with branches of trees and ropes made of 
bark fibre. Similar fortifications were always met with by the 
French in their long struggles with the Iroquois. There is little 
doubt that most of the encircling walls of the fortified enclo- 
sures of the mounds were surmounted by some sort of stock- 
ade, the remains of which have been occasionally noticed. 

Some earthworks, occurring chiefly in the western states, 
have been thought to show from the mode of their con- 

1 Am. Ass., Worcester, Massachusetts, 1855. 
/"Illustrations of the Manners, Customs, and Conditions of the North 
American Indians," London, 1866, 2 vols. 



THE MOUND BUILDERS. 



99 



struction that they were not intended for defence. Forts 
were erected in places naturally indicated, often on heights 
all but inaccessible. The enclosures, on the contrary, to 
which Squier and others wrongly give the title of sacred, are 
on the banks of rivers, in valleys overlooked by the neigh- 
boring hills, serious drawbacks which the Mound Builders 
avoided in the erection of their purely defensive forts. 

These enclosures, which were in all probability village de- 
fences, by whatever name we may call them, are always of 
regular form, square or circular, more rarely elliptical or 
polygonal. All the figures are perfect, all the angles are 
right angles, all the sides are equal. The men who built 
them certainly understood the art of measuring surfaces and 
angles. The walls vary in height, and their original eleva- 
tion can only now be guessed at. We may add that these 
works are so large, their arrangement so varied, and their 
numbers so great, that it is very difficult to give an exact 
idea of them. A few examples will help us. to do so. 

The most remarkable group is probably that of Newark, 
in the Scioto Valley. It includes an octagon covering an 
area of fifty acres, a square of twenty acres, and two circles 
of twenty and thirty acres respectively. The walls of the 
larger circle still measure twelve feet high by fifty feet wide 
at their base ; they are protected by an internal trench seven 
feet deep by thirty-five feet wide. According to a survey 
made by Colonel Whittlesey, the whole of these buildings 
occupy an area of twelve square miles, and the length of the 
series of mounds exceeds two miles. The large entrances 
are defended by slopes thirty-five feet high, trenches thirteen 
feet deep, passages forming regular labyrinths adding to the 
difficulties of access ; mounds of strange form, one of which 
resembles a bird's foot, with the middle claw 155 feet long, 
and those on either side no feet long, all astonish the ex- 
plorer. On these abandoned ruins, forest-trees have grown 
to a great age ; others preceded them, their gigantic trunks, 
now in a state of decomposition, bearing witness to their 
existence. Man, actuated by motives unknown to us, fled 



trfa 



IOO 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



from the scenes where every thing testifies to his power and 
his intelligence ; the vigorous vegetation of nature is the 
only life which has endured. 

At Chillicothe 1 we meet with a circle more than one hun- 
dred feet in diameter and an octagon of somewhat smaller 
dimensions. The walls of the octagon, like those at Newark, 
are from ten to twelve feet high, by fifty feet thick at the 
base. The height of the walls of the circle, partially de- 




FiG. 25. — Group at Liberty, Ohio. 

stroyed, is nowhere more than four and a half to five feet. 
All round these enclosures great numbers of small circles, 
scarcely above the level of the ground, can still be made 
out. At Hopetown, near Chillicothe, there are a circle and 
a square adjoining each other ; together they cover an area 
of exactly twenty acres. 

We give a drawing of a group somewhat resembling the 
one we have just described, and which can be more clearly 
examined (fig. 25). It is situated near Liberty, Ohio, and 



1 Squier : " Anc. Monuments of the Mississippi Valley," pi. XVI. 



THE MOUND BUILDERS. 



IOI 



consists of two circles and a square. The diameter of the 
large circle is 1,700 feet, and it covers an area of forty acres ; 
the diameter of the little one is 500 feet ; the area covered by 
the square, each side of which is 1,080 feet long, is twenty- 
seven acres. The walls are not connected with a trench, 
and, contrary to the custom generally followed, the earth of 
which they are composed is taken from trenches cut within 
the circle. 1 

Circleville, Ohio, takes its name from structures of this 
kind ; a square and circle touching one another. The side 
of the square measures 875 feet ; and the diameter of the 
circle is 985 feet. 

Eight openings, one at each angle .and in the middle of 
each side, give access to the square mound ; each of these 
was defended by a mound, and the circle was surrounded by 
a double wall. This group has already been greatly muti- 
lated ; many others have unfortunately shared its fate, and 
we must hasten to study these last witnesses of a by-gone 
condition of things, for the plow invades them every day, 
and no relic of this remote past can long resist the necessi- 
ties of modern life. 

An enclosure built of stone, near Black Run, Ross county, 
Ohio, merits special notice. It is of elliptical form, the large 
axis measuring 246 feet, and the small one 167 feet. A 
single opening gives access to it, and in front of this five 
walls stretch out in the form of a fan, but there is absolutely 
nothing to explain their purpose. 

The number and extent of these enclosures, with the 
great area they cover, forbids us to look upon them as tem- 
ples. We know of no worship, ancient or modern, of no 
rite, -with which they can be connected. It is more reasona- 
ble to suppose them to have been fortified villages, accord- 
ing to a usage met with in various parts of the Mississippi 
Valley by the first explorers. According to Ferguson, the 
small enclosures so often joined on to the large one, was the 
chief's dwelling ; the tents of his companions and those of 



Bancroft, vol. IV., p. 759 ; Short, p. 48. 



102 



P RE-HI S TORIC A M ERIC A . 



the members of his family having been grouped about his. 

Squier has given the name of temples to some truncated 
pyramids, the summits of which are reached by inclined 
planes. Some of them were doubtless so used. Occasion- 
ally these pyramids are in terraces or successive stories, but 
whatever their form, whether they be round, oval, polygonal, 
or square, they always end in a platform at the top. The 




Fig. 26. — Truncated mound at Marietta (Ohio). 

early explorers 1 found the houses of the chiefs in fortified 
villages always built on such mounds, others of which were 
used for religious purposes. Hence the name by which they 
are known. These mounds are very numerous at Chillicothe, 
Portsmouth, Marietta, (fig. 26), and generally throughout the 
whole of the State of Ohio. They are also met with in Ken- 

1 Garcilasso de la Vega reports that in Florida the chiefs used such mounds 
as sites for their dwellings. He mentions one no less than 1,800 feet in cir- 
cumference. 



THE MOUND BUILDERS. 



I03 



tucky, Missouri, Tennessee, and the southern states. They 
are more rare in the North, though they occur as far as the 
shores of Lake Superior, which seems to have been the ex- 
treme northern limit of the mounds. 

One of the most remarkable of these mounds is without 
doubt that of Cahokia, Illinois. 1 It rises in the centre of 
sixty others, of heights varying from thirty to sixty feet, and 
covering an area of six acres, according to Hass, but double 
that extent according to Putnam. The great pyramid of 
Cheops, we may remark by the way, covers an area of thir- 
teen acres. 

The great mound overlooks all the others, and attains, in 
four successive terraces, a height of ninety-one feet ; its base 
measures 560 feet by 720 ; the platform covering it, 146 by 
310, and it is estimated that 25,000,000 of cubic feet of earth 
were used in its construction. 2 Of course many years and 
thousands of workmen were needed for carrying on and com- 
pleting so considerable a work. 

The large mound was surmounted by a smaller one of 
pyramidal form, which may have been ten feet high, and 
was destroyed a few years ago. In demolishing it were 
found many human bones, bits of chert, arrow-points, frag- 
ments of coarsely made and badly burnt pottery, remains of 
offerings or of sacrifices. The approaches of this mound, 
which evidently played an important part in the history of 
these people, were defended by four square mounds, facing 
east, west, and southwest. These mounds vary in height 
from twenty to thirty feet, and on two of them had been 
erected conical pyramids, resembling pretty closely those 
surmounting the central mound. 

The Seltzertown mound is hardly less imposing than that 
of Cahokia. The base is a parallelogram six hundred feet by 

1 W. De Hass, Am. Ass., Chicago 1867; Putnam, "Report, Peabody 
Museum," vol. II., p. 471. etc. Putnam gives the plan of Cahokia as it 
is and the restored plans . It is known under the name of Monks' Mound, 
because Breckenridge, who visited it in 1811, located by mistake a Trappist 
convent on it, which was really on a neighboring mound. 

3 Force, quoted above, says 20,000,000 of cubic feet only. 



io4 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



four hundred feet ; its height is forty feet, and the platform, 
which is reached by a flight of steps, is no less than three acres 
in extent. 1 On this platform rise three conical mounds, the 
largest of which is also forty feet high, which gives to the 
structure as a whole a height of eighty feet above the 
ground. This mound presents this peculiarity: the whole 
of the northern side, that most exposed to inclemency of 
weather, is strengthened by a wall 2 two feet thick, made, as 
is very common amongst the Mexicans, of adobes, or mud 
bricks dried in the sun. Some of these bricks have retained 
to this day the marks of the fingers of the workmen who 
made them. 

At New Madrid, a mound of considerable dimensions is 
surrounded by a trench five feet deep by ten feet wide ; and 
the explorers of this county report having found, among 
the ruins bordering the rivers and streams tributary to the 
Missouri, a mound of the form of a parallelogram, rising 
above every thing near it. Professor Swallow describes one 
of these mounds, which he considers very ancient, as meas- 
uring nine hundred feet in circumference at its base and five 
hundred and seventy feet at the summit. The most interest- 
ing fact revealed by the excavation is the existence of an in- 
terior chamber, formed of poles of elm or cypress, set like the 
rafters in the roof of a house. The rafters w T ere tied with 
reeds and covered inside and out with a plaster of marl. The 
outside plastering was left rough, but the inside was smoothed 
carefully and coated with red ochre. 3 Excavations have 
yielded syenite disks and numerous pieces of pottery, among 
others a vessel moulded on a human skull, which cannot be 
taken out without breaking it (fig. 27). A sycamore twenty- 
eight feet, a nut-tree twenty-six feet, and an oak seventeen 
feet in circumference, overshadow one of these mounds. 

1 Squier and Davis : " Anc. Mon. of the Mississippi Valley," p. 117. Short : 
" The North Americans," p. 72. Foster : " Preh. Races," p. 112. 

2 Professor Cox has discovered near Helena (Phillips county, Arkansas) a 
similar wall ; only the clay instead of being mixed with dry grass encloses 
numerous fragments of reeds. 

3 " Report, Peabody Museum," 1875, P- x 7- 



THE MOUND BUILDERS. 



105 



There is no doubt that these trees are of later date than the 
erection of the mounds; but how much later than that erec- 
tion was the seed from which these large trees were to spring 
flung by a chance wind upon these piles of earth? 

We have spoken of the trench protecting the mound of 
New Madrid ; in other cases the protection consists of walls 
of considerable height defending the approaches. At Ma- 
tontiple a mound of considerable dimensions, and largely 
made up of baked earth, was surrounded by a circle of 
smaller mounds. At the junction of the Ohio and the 
Muskingum are to be seen two parallelograms, the walls of 




Fig. 27. — Skull enclosed in an earthenware pot. 

which are twenty-seven feet wide at their base. In the 
middle of the larger one rise four pyramids, the summit of 
three of which is reached by a flight of steps, whilst the fourth 
is inaccessible. Two embankments start from the single 
entrance of the enclosure, which is on the west, and run 
down to the river, the approaches to which they would 
appear to guard. On this account General Harrison has 
classed Matontiple among fortifications, but the absence of 
a ditch has led Squier to form a different opinion. 

Let us now proceed with a rapid and very incomplete enu- 
meration. One mound rises from the banks of the Etowah. 
It is of irregular form ; it covers three acres of ground at its 



io6 



P RE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



base, and it is flanked by two smaller mounds, representing 
truncated cones with steep walls. 1 Messier Mound (Georgia) 
is erected on a natural eminence. The height of the arti- 
ficial mound is fifty-five feet, and the platform at its summit 
measures one hundred and fifty-six by sixty-six feet. There 
is no road up to this platform, and it is difficult to climb 
to the top. 2 Messrs. Bertrand and W. Mackinley 3 also 
speak of several conical mounds in the state of Georgia, 
made up of strata, one on top of the other, perhaps dating 
from different periods. The pyramid of Koleemokee is 
especially remarkable ; it is no less than ninety-five feet high. 
We must also mention a mound twenty-three feet high, situ- 
ated in the Cumberland Valley, Tennessee; excavations 
yielded neither bones, implements, nor pottery, but at a cer- 
tain depth stones were met with arranged regularly, and 
which may reasonably be compared with the cromlechs of 
Ireland or of Wales. Recent discoveries have brought to 
light a large tumulus twenty-five miles from Olympia, Wash- 
ington Territory ; and, if the accounts of travellers can be 
trusted, its height is three hundred feet, far exceeding that 
of any other mound yet found. There is a single truncated 
pyramid eighty-eight feet high at Florence, Alabama, which 
deserves mention on account of the regularity of its construc- 
tion. Each side is arranged with a precision astonishing as 
the work of people whom we have, till quite lately, looked 
upon as wrapped in barbarism. 

We have followed the descriptions of American writers, 
who have had the advantage of writing and studying on the 
spot these monuments of a by-gone time. Whilst accepting 
their classification, however, in default of a better, we must 
repeat that with regard to the "temples," as well as the 
" sacred enclosures," there is no proof that they were used 
for religious rites, and it is more probable that these rites 

1 Whittlesey : " The Great Mound on Etowah River," Amer. Ass., Indian- 
apolis, 1871. Traces of a trench are supposed to have been made out round 
the mound ; according to Short (p. 82), its height is seventy-five feet. 
* 2 Bancroft, vol. IV., p. 267. 

3 " Travels in North America," p. 223. 



THE MOUND BUILDERS. 



107 



were solemnized on the altars of which we are about to 
speak. 

The mounds intended as altars are some of them square, 
some rectangular, and others circular or elliptical. Invari- 
ably situated in an enclosure, they frequently consist of hori- 
zontal layers of gravel, earth, and sand. Professor Andrews 1 
has proved that this stratification is not, as hitherto supposed, 
a universal custom. These materials cover an altar always 
on a level with the soil, and made of flat stones, or of clay 
hardened in the sun or by fire. Dr. Jones mentions an adobe 
altar in Tennessee, on which it is easy to make out the marks 
of the reeds upon which it had been moulded. In excep- 
tional cases roughly made coffins of unhewn stone are 
arranged round the altar. The size of these altars varies ad 
infinitum : some are but of a few inches square, others on the 
contrary are fifty feet long by fifteen feet wide. All bear 
traces of exposure to violent heat, and excavations seem to 
show that the objects offered up to the gods to whom these 
altars were sacred had to be purified in the flames at the 
time of sacrifice. 

Under one of these altars have been found thousands of 
hyaline quartz, obsidian, and manganese arrow-points, of ad- 
mirable workmanship. All were mutilated and broken by 
the action of the fire, and it was only after a long search that 
three or four were found intact. Under another mound were 
found more than six hundred hatchets, presenting a certain 
analogy with the European hatchets, of St. Acheul. These 
hatchets averaged seven inches long by four inches wide. 2 
Under a third mound were exhumed two hundred calcined 
pipes and some copper ornaments, the latter, in many cases, 
covered with a thin plating of silver, all distorted by the fierce- 
ness of the heat to which they had been subjected ; and lastly, 
under other mounds, were discovered fragments of pottery, 
obsidian implements, ivory and bone needles, so broken up 
that their original length could not be determined, and scroll 

1 " The Native Americans," p. 83, note 2. 

2 Squier : " Anc. Mon. of the Mississippi Valley," p. 213. 



io8 



P RE-HI S TORIC A M ERICA . 



work cut out of very thin plates of mica, and pierced with 
regular holes by which it could be suspended. 

These differences between the objects dug up near the 
different altars are important. Some have yielded spear- 
heads and pipes ; others, fragments of pottery and needles ; 
others, again, only chert with no marks of human workman- 
ship. It is probable that the offerings varied according to 
circumstances. 

We must, however, add that lately doubts have arisen as 
to the purpose of these mounds. These altars on a level 



Fig. 28. — Group near the Kickapoo River, Wisconsin. 

with the ground, buried beneath heaps of sand or earth, ap- 
pear strange, and are without precedent in the history of any 
known religion. The question has been asked whether they 
are not, after all, burial-places where cremation was the rite 
performed. The great number of similar objects met with 
seem to me to bear against this hypothesis, but this is a 
point which later excavations and fresh discoveries alone 
can determine. 

Perhaps two groups recently discovered in Wisconsin 1 
may be classed amongst sacrificial mounds. The first is 



' l Conant, p. 20. 



THE MOUND BUILDERS. 



I0 9 



situated in a low meadow near the Kickapoo River (fig. 28). 
The height of the central mound, which represents a radiat- 
ing circle, is but three feet ; its diameter is sixty feet, and 
is surrounded by five crescentic ridges, rising scarcely two 
feet above the ground, presenting a flat upper surface. Ex- 
cavations show that these mounds were made up of white 
sand and bluish clay. They have yielded only a considerable 
number of plates and very thin fragments of mica. Mica 
seems to have been much used by the Indian tribes of the 
United States, who were able to obtain it. It is frequently 




Fig. 29. — Group of mounds (Wisconsin). 



found in graves and on. the altar places, especially in the 
southeast, where it is particularly abundant in the mountain 
districts of North Carolina and Virginia. 

The second group (fig. 29), situated a short distance from 
the first, is more complicated in its arrangement. It con- 
sists of two circles separated by a pentagon and several de- 
tached mounds. The diameter of the large circle is twelve 
hundred feet. In the centre rises an altar, in connection 
with which a romantic story about the offering up of human 
sacrifices has been invented, which it is unnecessary to quote. 

The most numerous mounds are those which rise from 



1 10 



PRE-HIS TORIC A ME RICA . 



graves ; at all ages and places man shows respect to the 
mortal remains of him who was a man like himself. Affec- 
tion for parents or friends, the universal notion of a future 
life, vague and materialistic though it evidently was in that 
stage of culture, perhaps also the desire of propitiating the 
dead, or the fear of the vengeance of him whose corpse had 
been profaned ; all these motives combine to produce the 
respect for the dead which we meet with among most bar- 
barous as well as most civilized people. 




Fig. 30. — Group of sepulchral mounds. 

Sepulchral mounds (fig. 30), everywhere showing many 
points of resemblance, are met with throughout the United 
States. Frequent supplementary burials add to the origi- 
nally great difficulties of studying them. At different 
epochs they have been used by successive tribes of Indians, 
and even by the whites, for the burial of their dead. It is, 
however, often possible to distinguish the intrusive inter- 
ments, which are near the surface, whilst the bodies placed 
on a level with the ground certainly belonged to the race of 
the builders of the mounds. There are few traditions relat- 
ing to these mounds among the Indians, who generally 
deny that they were the works of their ancestors, which often 
may be true, so great are the migrations and changes which. 



THE MOUND BUILDERS. 



1 1 I 



have taken place during the last few centuries. Brecken- 
ridge, however, in speaking of the excavations of the Big 
Mound (fig. 31), which a short time since was a prominent 
object within the city limits of St. Louis, says that the In- 
dians hastened to take from it the bones of one of their 
chiefs. 

Mounds are connected with very different rites, and 
among them we meet with every form of burial in use in 
Europe ; the bodies were sometimes extended horizontally, 
sometimes doubled up. We noted at Sandy Woods settle- 
ment the different positions of the bodies ; in Union county, 




Fig. 31.— Big Mound at St. Louis (Missouri). 

Kentucky, the bodies were placed one upon another without 
apparent method. 1 Cremation, too, was practised. In Mis- 
souri the body was sometimes covered over with a layer of 
clay, after which a huge funeral pile was lighted. Mention 
has also been made of remains found in Ohio, covered with 
a layer of clay made so hard by baking that it was only w^ith 
the greatest trouble that it could be cut into. 2 Gillman tells 
of having found in Florida the ashes of the dead preserved 
with pious care in human skulls. 3 In Kansas stones were 
heaped over the body, forming a cairn. 4 In other places 

1 Lyon : "Smiths. Contr.," 1S70. 

2 " Burial Mounds in Ohio," Am. Ant., July, 1879. 

3 Explorations in the vicinity of Aledo, Florida. 

4 " Report, Peabody Museum," vol. II., p. 717. 



112 



PRE-HIS TORIC A ME RICA . 



skeletons have been found wrapped up in a few fragments 
of coarse tissue, or in bandages of bark. Squier 1 describes 
a sepulchre excavated under his direction in which the earth 
had been levelled and a layer of bark placed beneath the 
corpse. Round about lay some implements and a few orna- 
ments, including two bear's teeth which were pierced ; above 
the skeleton was a second layer of bark, carefully arranged, 
and, piled upon these, earth, forming a mound. 

Under a mound at Chillicothe, the skeleton was discovered 
of a very tall woman who died young ; her teeth were all in- 
tact, and at her feet lay the bones of a child. Beneath these 
human remains was greasy black earth, in which the microscope 
has revealed remains of animal matter and heaps of cinders. 
Further excavations brought to light a great many other 
bones. It is uncertain whether they were those of unfortu- 
nates offered up in sanguinary rites, or merely of those 
whose remains had been subjected to cremation as a mark 
of respect. All the bodies lay on the left side, and by each 
one was placed a vessel full of food, which would hardly 
have been provided for victims. These are very character- 
istic funeral rites. 

Other explorers tell of vast cemeteries, or groups of 
mounds, which they look upon as the sepulchres of great 
chiefs. We shall mention the most important discoveries 
and endeavor to show to what different rites they bear 
witness. 

Near New Madrid, Conant noticed that the bodies were 
placed horizontally, with the head turned toward the centre 
of the mound. Vessels were placed on the right and the 
left, and a third was held upon the breast by the crossed 
arms of the dead. Mr. H. Gillman mentions a burial 
mound at Fort Wayne, where the confusion in which the 
bones lay showed numerous secondary burials, but where in- 
humation had always been the mode employed. Some pot- 
tery vases give evidence of an art that had already made 
progress. 

1 " Ant. of the Mississippi Valley," p. 164. 



THE MOUND BUILDERS. 



"3 



The excavations at Madisonville in the valley of the Lit- 
tle Miami, Ohio, by Metz and Putnam, have yielded more 
than six hundred skeletons of every age and of both sexes. 
Near them were picked up numerous pots, some of them 
decorated with incised designs. Two were decorated with 
small medallions representing human heads. Other articles 
found were stone pipes, arrow-points, knives, hammers, pol- 
ished adzes, bone implements, and shell and copper orna- 
ments. 1 

No less interesting were Farquharson's excavations near 
Davenport, Iowa. One of the mounds is thirty feet in di- 
ameter and five feet high. The successive layers counting 
from the top are : earth, one foot ; stones brought from the 
bed of the river, one and one half feet ; second layer of earth, 
one and one half feet ; layer of shells, two inches ; third 
layer of earth, one foot ; second layer of shells, four inches. 
Five skeletons stretched out horizontally rested on the last 
layer. The objects placed with the dead consisted of a large 
sea-shell (Busycon perversum — L.) ; two unused copper axes 
covered with a woven tissue of which the remains could still 
be made out ; an awl also of copper, a stone arrow-point, and 
two pipes — one representing a frog. The human bones 
crumbled to dust as soon as they were brought to light, so 
that no examination was possible. The objects picked up in 
the other mounds of Iowa' were of a similar kind ; two pipes 
are mentioned, one representing a pig, the other a bird, both 
presenting a considerable resemblance to those of Ohio. We 
must also mention the tooth of a gray bear, pierced with a hole 
by which to hang it on a cord ; careful examination proved 
this tooth not to be a real one, but an imitation in bone. 
These people were therefore not wanting in powers of ob- 
servation. Under a mound near Toolesborough, Iowa, was 
picked up a shell alleged to be native to South America, 3 
which had been brought far away from the scenes where the 
mollusk had lived to which it had belonged. 

^'Bulletin, Harvard University," June, 1881. 

3 American Antiquarian, 1879. This statement requires confirmation by 
an expert conchologist. 



U4 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



Deacon Elliot Frinck speaks of a skeleton buried head 
downward. 1 This would be a curious fact, but it is one of 
so exceptional a character in America as well as in the Old 
World, that one cannot help thinking the corpse was origi- 
nally placed in a sitting or doubled up posture, and that the 
pressure of the earth or the decomposition of the body 
caused the head to slip between the knees. In Wisconsin 
the dead were wrapped in bandages of bark and seated 
facing the east. No weapons or ornaments were placed 
near them, and Dr. Lapham's numerous excavations have 
produced nothing but three vases of very common pottery. 2 

In other places, in Tennessee for instance, numerous 
skeletons, apparently dating from the time of the Mound 
Builders, have been found in caves. In one of these caves, 
fifteen miles from Sparta, some human remains were found 
enclosed in baskets made of rushes artistically plaited ; nor 
is this an isolated instance. Heywood relates having seen 
on Smith's Fork, near Cairo, the skeletons of a man and of a 
woman laid in baskets. 3 Humboldt mentions similar facts 
in Peru. 4 The most curious sepulchres are, however, those 
in which the dead were buried between slabs of rough stone, 
or in sepulchral chambers, recalling the chambered barrows 
of England. 

Since 1818, a cemetery has been found at Trenton, fifteen 
miles from St. Louis, where the skeletons lay in cists made 
of six stones, clumsily put together without cement of any 
kind. The largest of these cists were not more than fifty 
inches in length, and the bodies must have been curled up 
in them, or the bones placed there after decomposition of 
the flesh. Hence the popular belief, maintained to this day, 
that Missouri and Tennessee were originally inhabited by a 
race of pygmies. 

Perkins: " Ancient Burial-Ground in Swanton, Vermont." "Rep. Am. 
iss.," Portland, 1873. 

2 "Ant. of Wisconsin," " Smiths. Contr.," vol. VII. 

3 Jones : ' ' Explorations of the Aboriginal Remains of Tennessee." " Smiths. 
Contr.," vol. XXII., Washington, 1876. 

4 " Personal Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America," vol. II., p. 
396 et seq., Bolin's Edition, 1852. 



THE MOUND BUILDERS. 



Other discoveries have supplemented these. During the 
session of the American Association for the Advancement 
of Science, at Nashville, in 1877, several of the numer- 
ous mounds of Tennessee were excavated. 1 Putnam was of 
the opinion that they were the graves and the work of 
the same race as that of which he had found cemeteries in 
Arkansas, Missouri, and Illinois. 2 These mounds were situ- 
ated on a farm belonging to Miss Bowling. The skulls 
were of similar form, the ornaments and pottery of similar 
manufacture. The number of the skeletons was consider- 
able. Their figure was estimated at between six and eight 
hundred ; one of the sepulchres alone, excavated under the 
personal superintendence of the learned keeper of the 
Peabody Museum, yielded nearly fifty. The bodies with but 
one exception were enclosed between slabs of unwrought 
stone of varying size, and these sarcophagi were arranged 
hap-hazard in successive layers. 3 Some were empty, doubt- 
less awaiting the body that was to occupy them. The bodies 
were stretched out horizontally, and near each had been 
placed pieces of pottery of various forms, 4 stone and bone 
implements, and shell ornaments, the last souvenirs given to 
the dead. In Madison county, Illinois, two stone cists were 
found which have been described in detail by Bandelier. 
They form a rectangle, each side of which is made of slabs 
of limestone in their natural condition, showing no trace 
of human workmanship. The bones were so mixed together 
that they are supposed to have been thrown into the 
cist after the decomposition of the flesh. Although the 
antiquity of these bones seems to be great, one of the skulls 

1 "Numerous stone graves containing human remains are at the present day 
found along the banks of the rivers and streams in the fertile valleys, and around 
the cool springs which abound in the limestone region of Tennessee and 
Kentucky. These ancient repositories of the dead are frequently surrounded by 
extensive earthworks." — Dr. Jones. 

2 "Report, Peabody Museum," 1878, vol. II., p. 203, etc. 

3 " Arch. Explorations in Tennessee," " Report, Peabody Museum," vol. II., 
P- 305. 

4 In the following chapter we shall recur to the very curious pieces of pottery 
found in these excavations. 



n6 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



has been recognized by competent judges as approaching the 
type of the present Indian race. 

More important work and more complicated arrangement 
are seen in the chambered mounds. We mention first 
one of the most remarkable tumuli, that of Grave Greek, 
Virginia, at the junction of that stream with the Ohio. 
This mound, which is of considerable size, encloses two 
sepulchral chambers one at about thirty feet above the 
other. They were built of beams, which, gradually giving 
way, let the stones and earth piled up on the roof fall into 
the vacant space and crush the skeletons which had been 
laid in the chambers. The upper room contained but one 
body, the lower two bodies — one of a man, the other of 
a woman. Beside them lay numerous mica ornaments, shell 
collars, copper bracelets, and some fragments of hewn stone. 
From the lower room was entered a larger one where 
ten skeletons were found in a squatting posture, but un- 
fortunately so much decomposed that they could not be sub- 
jected to any scientific examination. It is supposed that 
they were the remains of unfortunate victims immolated in 
honor of the chief to whom the tomb was devoted. 

At Harrisonville, Franklin county, Ohio, excavations have 
brought to light rough stones placed one on top of the other, 
without any trace of mortar ; after removing the earth, roots 
and rubbish of all kinds covering it up, a room twelve feet 
square was made out, with a hearth at the end still filled with 
cinders and charcoal, round about which lay eight skeletons 
of every age from the child to the old man. In the various 
valleys of the same region rise similar mounds, in which have 
been found numerous human bones, stone implements, and 
fragments of pottery. In one of the skulls was stuck a 
spear point about six inches long which had probably in- 
flicted the death wound. Some of the crypts had vaulted 
roofs 1 the better to resist the pressure of the earth above. 

1 " Recent explorations of many mounds have disclosed vaults walled and 
covered with stone, some of large dimensions, with contents similar to those of 
Utah," Conant : " Foot prints of Vanished Races," p. 75. 



THE MOUND BUILDERS. 



117 



These sepulchral chambers are chiefly met with in the 
central states. Excavations in Big Mound, St. Louis, of 
which we have already spoken (fig. 31), and which was only 
destroyed in 1869, brought to light the existence of a crypt 
measuring thirty feet high by one hundred and fifty feet long. 1 
The walls were not of stone like those just mentioned but of 
compact clay carefully smoothed. It is supposed that the 
roof had been formed of beams for supporting the weight of 
earth. This is a plan followed in many neighboring mounds, 
dating probably from the same epoch. The bodies were 
stretched upon the bare ground, all the heads being turned 
toward the east. In the black mould covering the bones, 
broken into fragments by the fall of earth from above, 
were picked up a considerable number of shells, chiefly the 
.shells of fresh-water mussels, which are very abundant in the 
neighborhood, and a pretty sea-shell the Marginella apicina 
of Lamarck ; also shell beads, somewhat like those found in 
Ohio, and cut out of the Busycon perversum so abundant in 
the Gulf of Mexico. 

It is proved beyond a doubt by numerous instances that 
cremation was practised in certain cases by the Mound 
Builders, who at the same time in other cases disposed 
of their dead by inhumation. We have been speaking of the 
sepulchral chambers of the Missouri ; Curtiss speaks of 
important groups on both sides of the river. Three of these 
he had excavated under his own superintendence ; the crypts 
formed a square of eight feet with a height of four to five feet, 
and a passage several feet long ended in an opening facing 
the east. Toward the base the walls were five feet thick 
gradually decreasing to the top, and built of stone, without 
mortar or cement of any kind. One of the crypts was 
closed with great slabs ; the others had probably been 
shut in with beams, long since disappeared. Each of them 
enclosed several skeletons, 2 all of which had been subjected 

1 Breckenridge : "Views of Louisiana." When the excavations took 
place this crypt had already been disturbed, but it could still be distinguished 
over an area seventy-two feet in length. Conant, /. c, p. 42. 

2 In one of the crypts Curtiss says he made out five skeletons ; in an- 



n8 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



to fierce heat. The human bones were mixed with cinders^ 
bits of charcoal, and animal bones, which were piled upon 
the ground several inches high, and amongst the remains the 
explorers discovered several all but unrecognizable frag- 
ments of pottery, some stone implements, and a shark's 
tooth. Excavations were also carried on under a large 
mound near by, but no traces of cremation were met with in 
it. The bodies were stretched horizontally on the ground, 
and Mr. Curtiss was able to make a valuable collection 
of implements, stone weapons, and carefully manufactured 
pieces of pottery. What were the relations between the 
men who buried their dead and their neighbors who burnt 
them ? Did they belong to the same races ? Did they 
live at the same epoch ? There are no means of replying 
with any certainty to these questions. 

Missouri is not the only region where cremation was 
practised. Dr. Andrews speaks of some burnt human bones 
found in Connett's Mound, near Dover, Athens county, 
Ohio, which distinctly prove that the corpse had been re- 
duced to ashes by fire. 1 Before cremation the body seems 
to have been placed in a wooden coffin. The presence of 
remains of various matters used for food, such as those met 
with in the shell-heaps, points to the practice of feasting in 
connection with the funeral ceremonies. Dr. Larkin comes to 
the same conclusions after the excavation of a mound in the 
state of New York. 2 Under one of the mounds rising in 
the Pishtaka valley, Lapham collected some burnt clay, some 
stones almost converted into lime by the action of intense 
heat, some pieces of charcoal, and among all these a 
half calcined human shin-bone. Squier also mentions sev- 
eral instances of skeletons still showing traces of the fire 
which consumed the flesh. 

We may also mention a mound of oval form situated 
in Florida. The two axes of the base measure respectively 

other, thirteen. " Report, Peabody Museum," vol. II., p. 717. See also E. 
P. West, Western Review, Feb., 1879. 

I" Report, Peabody Museum," 1877, vol. II., p. 59. 

2 "Report, Peabody Museum," t88o, vol. II., p. 722, 



THE MOUND BUILDERS. 



ninety-eight and eighty-eight feet. At different depths 
varying from one to fifteen feet numerous human bones 
have been picked up, bearing witness to a whole series 
of burials. With these bones were found several vases 
of remarkable execution and ornamentation, some frag- 
ments of quartz, and a stone hatchet. As the excava- 
tions proceeded, cinders, and half-consumed human bones 
were found ; they had been collected and placed in a 
skull which unfortunately crumbled to dust as soon as 
it was brought to light. This is not a solitary instance, 
for we have already spoken of other cases in point. Did 
these skulls, the presence of which certainly proves the 
use of a special funeral ceremony, belong to the men whose 
bodies had been burned ? It is difficult to say ; for if on 
the one hand the skulls bear no mark of fire, there are on the 
other no remains of skulls among the human fragments col- 
lected. We must add that some of the long bones seem to 
have been split ; if this be really the case and we attach to it 
its natural interpretation, cannibalism was not unknown 
among the Mound Builders. 

We may also mention the excavations made in 1874, in- 
to the mounds on the Mississippi, opposite the town of 
Muscatine. They yielded human bones, and above the bones 
charcoal and burnt earth, a positive proof that a large fire 
had been lighted after burial. This was still another mode 
of conducting the funeral ceremony. 1 

Cremation is still practised amongst some of the In- 
dians of North America. John Leconte speaks of having 
witnessed scenes of this description amongst the Kokopas 
settled near Fort Yuma, at the junction of the Colorado and 
the Gila. A deep trench had been dug and wood piled up 
before the parents and friends brought the body. The faces 
of the men were painted black ; the women howled and sung 
funeral hymns alternately. When the body was half 
consumed, an old man, one of the chiefs of the tribe, ap- 
proached it and with a pointed stick tore out both the eyes 



1 American Antiquarian, 1879, 3d quarter, p. 99. 



120 



PRE- HIS TOPIC A M ERICA . 



and held first one and then the other toward the sun, saying 
a few words which, according to the guide who accompanied 
Leconte, were a prayer for the deceased. When all was 
over and the fire put out, the assistant carefully collected 
the ashes and the calcined bones to give them back to 
the family of the departed. 1 

To conclude our remarks on sepulchral mounds we must 
mention some facts hitherto little known, and which il- 
lustrate still better the honors rendered by the Mound 
Builders to their chiefs, and the pious care with which their 
funerals were conducted. A group of mounds (fig. 32) rises 




Fig. 32. — Group of mounds at the junction of Straddle Creek and Plumb 
River, Illinois. 

at the junction of Straddle Creek and Plumb River, Car- 
roll county, Illinois. 2 The forms of these mounds vary; 
some are conical, others are more or less complete circles. 
Excavations have yielded cinders and a residuum of black 
mould. It is supposed that these mounds were the burial- 
places of men who burned their dead, that each family had 
its tomb, and when one of the members died his ashes were 
laid beside those of his people and covered with a layer 
of earth, and that this was continued until a cone about two 
feet high was formed. The circles and half circles are sup- 

1 " Cremation Amongst North American Indians." — Am. Ass., New York k 
1874. 

3 Conant : " Footprints of Vanished Races," p. 17. 



THE MOUND BUILDERS. 



121 



posed to indicate tombs the inmates of which were not 
numerous, but whose families had become extinct or dis- 
persed, so that the graves were never rilled. We give this 
explanation for what it is worth, only adding that similar 
burial-places are met with in all the districts west of the 
Mississippi, in the Ohio valley, Michigan, and many of the 
northern states. 

At about two hundred and eighty yards from the group 
we have just noticed another has been discovered, dating ap- 
parently from the same epoch, in which the bodies were 
simply interred. It is alleged that tradition ascribes this 
change in the mode of burial to obedience to the prophets of 
the tribe, who were alarmed by an eclipse of the sun which 
occurred whilst the body of one of their chiefs was be- 
ing burnt. Without attaching more importance than it 
deserves to this asserted tradition, we will merely add that 
the fact of the simultaneous practice amongst the same 
people of two funeral rites so different as cremation and in- 
terment would surprise us more, if we did not know of many 
analogous examples among the various races of Europe. 

The second group (fig. 33) discovered in Minnesota, on the 
northern bank of the St. Peter's River, about sixty miles 
from its junction with the Mississippi, is of more com- 
plicated appearance. It includes twenty-six mounds placed 
at regular distances from each other, and forming together a 
large rectangle. 1 The central mound (a) represents a turtle 
forty feet long by twenty-seven feet wide and twelve feet 
high. It is almost entirely formed of yellow clay, foreign to 
the locality, and doubtless brought from a distance. On the 
north and south rise two mounds (d) of triangular form, com- 
posed of red earth, covered with a thin layer of soil. Each 
of these mounds is twenty-seven feet long by about six feet 
wide at the wider end, gradually decreasing toward the 
opposite end, which scarcely rises above the level of the soil. 
At each corner rises a circular mound (f) twelve feet high by 
twenty-five feet in diameter. On the east and west are two 



1 Conant : " Footprints of Vanished Races," p. iS. 



122 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



elongated mounds (c) sixty feet long with a diameter of 
twelve feet. Two smaller mounds (e) on the right and 
left of the turtle are each twelve feet long by four feet 
high. They consist of white sand mixed with numerous 
fragments of mica and covered with a layer of clay and 
a second one of vegetable mould. The two mounds (b) 
differ in height ; that on the south being twelve feet high by 
twenty-seven feet in diameter, whilst that on the north 
is only four feet high, with a diameter of twenty-two feet. 
Lastly thirteen little mounds, the dimensions of which 
are not given, complete this remarkable group, which must 
have cost the builders all the more work because part of the 




Fig. 33. — The burial-place of the Black Tortoise. 

materials can only have been obtained from a considerable 
distance. 

Here is the explanation given by Conant, of the whole 
group. The principal tomb (a) would be the last home of 
a great chief, the Black Tortoise ; the four mounds (/) which 
form the corners of the quadrangle were also erected as a 
sign of the mourning of the tribe ; the secondary mounds 
would be the tombs of other chiefs, and the little mounds 
erected in the north and south correspond with the number 
of bodies which had been deposited in them. The two 
pointed mounds (d) indicate that the Black Tortoise was 
the last of his race, and the two large mounds the 



THE MOUND BUILDERS. 



123 



importance of that race and the dignity that had be- 
longed to it. Lastly, the two mounds (e) on the right 
and left of the royal tomb mark the burial-places of the 
prophets or soothsayers, who even to our own day play 
a great part among the Indian tribes. The fragments of 
mica found in their tombs would indicate their rank. It 
may be said that in the absence of any accurate information 
whatever, as to the origin and use of these mounds, the pre- 
ceding hypothesis is not more unfounded than many others 
which might be invented. 

Of all the mounds erected on American soil, the most 
curious are without doubt those representing animals, first 
noticed and described by Mr. W. Pidgeon in 1853. They 
are met with in Iowa, Ohio, Illinois, Missouri, Indiana, and 
generally speaking in all the states of the far west ; but 
the chief centre of these singular erections seems to have 
been Wisconsin, where they are very numerous. Some 
archaeologists think that the animal mounds may perhaps 
have been intended to represent the totem or distinctive 
symbol of a clan. This symbol is often an animal, such as 
the eagle, wolf, bear, turtle, or fox, but, if the observations 
made may be relied on, they are as often representations of 
objects not totemic as otherwise. They represent men with 
the trunk, head, arms, and legs, still recognizable ; mammals 
sixty-five yards long ; birds 1 with outspread wings measuring 
more than thirty-two yards from tip to tip ; reptiles, turtles, 
and " lizards " of colossal dimensions ; and, lastly, Pidgeon 
mentions having seen in Minnesota a huge spider, whose 
body and legs covered an acre of ground. 

These mounds of diverse form are grouped without ap- 
parent order, — now by the side of pyramids or truncated 
cones, now in the midst of circles or rectangles connected 
with the structures we are about to describe. At Pewaukee, 
Wisconsin, seven turtles, two "lizards," and four mounds of 

1 Mounds of the form of birds have recently been discovered in Putnam 
county, Georgia. This is an interesting fact, for hitherto such mounds had 
only been found in the northern and western states. — "Bird-shaped mounds 
in Putnam county, Georgia," Anthr. Inst, of Great Britain and Ireland, 1879. 



124 



PRE-H1ST0RIC AMERICA. 



elliptical form can be made out together. One of the turtles, 
the largest yet discovered, measures no less than four hun- 
dred and fifty feet. A little farther off, in Dane Co., we meet 
with a group of quadrupeds, — buffaloes according to some 
authorities, pumas according to others. Their length varies 
from eighty-two to one hundred and fourteen feet. In other 
places an observer of lively imagination can make out elks, 
bears, wolves, panthers, eagles, wild geese, herons, even frogs. 
What is more certain than their form, however, is, that in the 
vast western plains these ridges can easily be seen from a 
distance, though their height seldom exceeds two yards, and 




Fig. 34. — Mound supposed to represent a man. 

often amounts only to a few inches. We may as well add 
that nothing has been found in the numerous excavations 
made into mounds of this description, and that some archae- 
ologists are bold enough to doubt the very existence as 
artificial structures of many of those which have been de- 
scribed. However, from among the most celebrated mounds 
of this sort we select a human figure (fig. 34), in which the 
design may be admitted. It is stated that a more or less 
ancient tradition alleges that this mound was erected in 
honor of a chief killed in battle. The little mound placed 



THE MOUND BUILDERS. 



125 



between the legs was sacred to the memory of his son, killed 
fighting by the side of his father. We may also refer to the 
" alligator," of Granville, Ohio, (fig. 35); the length of the 




FlG, 35. — Curved section of the mountain, and plan of the so-called alligator 

mound. 




Fig. 36. — Mound supposed to represent a mastodon. 



body is two hundred and five feet, that of each foot is 
twenty feet ; it is evidently not an alligator, for the abo- 
rigines were too good observers to give an alligator a round 



126 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



head. It might have been intended for an otter, or the 
great salamander {inenopomci), if really designed for an 
animal at all. Another has been claimed as a mastodon 
(fig. 36), and is situated a short distance from the junction 
of the Wisconsin and the Mississippi rivers. It is considered 
to be a surprising likeness by archaeologists who are not 
zoologists. 

Other enthusiastic investigators have discovered in Wiscon- 
sin a monkey 160 feet long. Its alleged tail forms a semi- 
circle, which, uncurled, would measure no less than 320 feet. 1 
In one of those in Wisconsin a bird is represented just about 
to take flight, and under one of its wings is a little elliptical 

mound. Lapham thinks he makes 
out a complete allegory in this : 
The bird is taking to the land of 
spirits the soul of him to whom 
the mound is sacred, and this soul 
is represented by the little mound 
under the wing of the bird. 2 

We must not omit the great 

Fig. 37.-Basalt cup from Mexico. snake get upon a hm overlook- 
ing Brush Creek, Adams county, Ohio. His coils are 
about 700 feet long, and he appears to be swallowing an egg, 
which he holds in his mouth and which is represented by 
a mound, the large axis of which measures 160 feet. Proba- 
bly we have an allegory here also. The serpent plays an 
important part in the mythology of the American aborig- 
ines. We find it represented on their pottery. Out of 
eighteen Busycon shells, now in the Peabody Museum, 
which had served as ornaments to these unknown people, 
thirteen are engraved with the figure of a serpent. The 
National Museum at Washington possesses a pipe rep- 
resenting a human figure with a serpent coiled round 
the neck ; and that of Mexico, a vase remarkable for the 
elegance of its shape, the handle of which is formed by a 
serpent, (fig. 37). 

'Foster, "Prehistoric Races," p. 101. 

3 " Ant. of Wisconsin," pi. XLVI., fig. 4. 




THE MOUND BUILDERS. 



127 



We have other yet more curious instances. In several 
places, though we cannot interpret its meaning, we meet 
with the representation of a serpent swallowing the head of 
a turtle. The Dominican monks of Mexico have preserved 
and set up over their entrance gate an antique bas-relief 
representing a serpent crushing a human victim in his coils. 
At Chichen Itza colossal serpents are carved on the walls of 
the palace. Near Jalapa, in the province of Vera Cruz, a 
serpent fifteen feet long is distinguishable sculptured on a 
rock, 1 and similar serpents are found in the bas-reliefs of the 
temple of Huitzilopochtli, which dates from the time of the 
Aztecs, as well as on the walls of the buildings of Cuzco, 
witnessing to Peruvian splendor. 

The very name of some races recalls the worship of the 
serpent. The Nahuas, who share with the Mayas the 
honor of having enjoyed the highest known civilization 
of ancient America, are often called the Culhuas, or the 
men of the race of the serpent ; among the Mayas the 
empire of Xibalba was known under the name of the Do- 
minion of the Chanes, or serpents. May we not trace to this 
origin the veneration in which certain Indian tribes of New 
Mexico still hold the rattlesnake ? They keep it in certain 
caves of their mountains, the entrances to which they hide 
with jealous care, and it is said they go to worship it in 
secret. 2 

On the northern banks of the Wisconsin rises a strange 
group (fig. 38), which is a true puzzle to explorers. 3 It in- 
cludes one figure 180 feet long, placed horizontally, and an- 
other 160 feet long, arranged perpendicularly with regard to 
the former. The latter abuts upon a ridge eighty feet long 
by six feet high and twenty-seven feet in diameter. On the 
same line are a series of mounds of conical shape and gradu- 
ated size, the largest representing the same diameter as that 
of the above-mentioned ridge. The first figure has been re- 

1 Rivero, " Hist, de Jalapa, Mexico," vol. I., p. 7. 

3 Bandelier : " Ruins of the Pueblo of Pecos." 

8 Conant : " Footprints of Vanished Races," p. 32, etc. 



128 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



garded as an elk, the second as human. The horns of the 
elk are of unequal size, and at its feet is one of the triangu- 
lar mounds which have been supposed to typify the extinc- 
tion of a race. This group is explained as intended to com- 
memorate the alliance of two tribes, of which the elk and 
the buffalo were the totem or the symbols. These once pow- 
erful tribes, exhausted by long and bloody struggles, united 
for the common defence, and their alliance is indicated by 
the touching of the man's hand and the elk's foot. The 
two mounds on the right and the left are regarded as 
altars, on which sacrifices were offered to commemorate the 
union of the two tribes. A layer of burnt earth, cinders, and 



FlG. 38. — The so-called " man and the elk " mounds in Wisconsin. 

charcoal, fourteen inches thick, seems to justify this supposi- 
tion. An old tree has pushed its roots beneath the mounds ; 
and its 424 concentric rings of growth form the only guide 
we have as to the age of this interesting group. Why one 
tribe was represented by its symbol and the other not, is not 
explained by the above hypothesis. 

Several mounds show a variety worthy of remark. Some 
animals of dimensions pretty nearly resembling those of 
which we have just spoken, are represented, not by ridges 
but by ditches. We mention this fact, while we fully recog- 
nize that in such a matter imagination is offered unlimited 
scope. 

In other places representations of inanimate objects are 




THE MOUND BUILDERS. 



I2 9 



spoken of, such as a cross on the shores of Lake Michigan, 1 
and a Greek cross in Ohio about twenty-nine yards long, 
with a large hollow in the centre about six yards deep. 
We may also mention a cross in the valley formed by the 
Rock River. The arms of this cross appear to be equal, 
but the plow has already commenced its work of destruc- 
tion, and it is impossible to determine the length. A 
mound on the banks of the Scioto 2 represents a boat fifty- 
two yards long by about thirty yards wide, and a little 
farther off the explorer makes out some groups which he 
may call, according to the fancy of the moment, clubs or 
pipes. We are not disposed to attach importance to resem- 
blances probably quite accidental. 

Although incredulous as to certain interpretations which 
some would have accepted, it is difficult to repress surprise 
in contemplating the admittedly genuine works accom- 
plished by these vanished people with only the help of 
stone tools, baskets, and persistent manual labor. In 
metals they had at most some copper implements. Iron 
and bronze appear to have been practically unknown to 
them, and in no part of a vast territory they occupied have 
excavations revealed the existence or the use of any metal but 
native copper, with its associated silver, gold and a few frag- 
ments of meteoric iron. But our astonishment is redoubled 
when we find these men digging canals to establish water 
communication, a striking proof of a numerous population, 
and a decided advance on the nomadic state, though, as evi- 
denced by numerous Asiatic peoples, not necessarily an indi- 
cation of a high degree of culture. Lately traces of such 
canals have been made out in Missouri. Dr. G. Swallow, 
State Geologist of Missouri, calls the attention of archaeolo- 
gists to them, and describes one fifty feet wide by twelve 
feet deep. There are others in different places. All are of 
systematic design, and, according to that gentleman, they 

1 Lapham : "Ant. of Wisconsin," pp. 20 and 39, pi. XXXI., figs. 2 and 3. 

2 W. de Hass : "Arch, of the Mississippi Valley," Rep. Am. Assoc., 
Chicago, 1868. 



130 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



are executed with intelligent reference to the difficulties of 
the ground. Earthquakes have in many places destroyed 
the traces of these canals — the progress of civilization is per- 
petually levelling their embankments — but the works can . 
still be made out, and on a line seventy miles long a series 
of canals can be recognized connecting the Mississippi with 
Big Lake, Cushion and Collins lakes. 1 These people may 
have navigated the canals in boats, which we can confidently 
assert they knew how to hollow out, with the aid of fire, 
from the trunks of trees. 2 Similar processes were employed 
in Europe in the early days of navigation. Recent discov- 
eries have suggested the existence of pile-dwellings rising 
from the Great Lakes of the north. 3 All over the earth 
similar wants have led to similar efforts of intelligence and 
similar products of industry. This is a fact of very great 
importance. 

In closing this chapter, what, it may be asked, are we to 
believe was the character of the race to which for the pur- 
pose of clearness we have for the time being applied the 
term, " Mound Builders " ? The answer must be, they were 
no more nor less than the immediate predecessors in blood 
and culture of the Indians described by De Soto's chronicler 
and other early explorers, the Indians who inhabited the 
region of the mounds at the time of their discovery by 
civilized men. As, in the far north, the Aleuts up to the 
time of their discovery were, by the testimony of the shell- 
heaps, as well as their language, the direct successors of the 
early Eskimo, 4 — so in the fertile basin of the Mississippi, the 
Indians were the builders or the successors of the builders 
of the singular and varied structures just described. It is 
true that a very different opinion has been widely enter- 
tained, chiefly by those who were not aware of the historical. 

better from M. Carlton, quoted by Conant : "Footprints of Vanished 

Races," p. 78. 

2 Schoolcraft : " Archives of Aboriginal Knowledge," vol. I., p. 76, 

3 Am. Antiquarian, Jan., 1S81, p. 141. 

4 "See Contributions to North American Ethnology," vol. I., 1877. Article. 
2. -" On Succession in the Shell-heaps of the Aleutian Islands." 



THE MOUND BUILDERS. 



evidence. Even Mr. Squier who, in his famous work on the 
ancient monuments of the Mississippi valley, makes no dis- 
tinction in these remains, but speaks of the Mound Builders 
as an extinct race and contrasts their progress in the arts 
with the supposed low condition of the modern Indians, in 
a subsequent publication felt compelled to modify his views 
and distinguish between the earthworks of western New 
York, which he admits to be of purely Indian origin, and 
those found in southern Ohio. 1 Further researches have 
shown that no line can be drawn between the two ; the dif- 
ferences are merely of degree. For the most part the 
objects found in them, from the rude knife to the carved and 
polished " gorget," might have been taken from the inmost 
recesses of a mound or picked up on the surface among the 
debris of a recent Indian village, and the most experienced 
archaeologist could not decide which was their origin. Lucien 
Carr 2 has recently reviewed the whole subject in a manner 
which cannot but carry conviction to the impartial archaeolo- 
gist, but the conclusions he arrives at have the weight of 
other and, as all will admit, most distinguished authority. 3 

1 " Smithsonian Contr. to Knowledge," ii., p. 83, 1851. 

2 " Mounds of the Mississippi Valley," " Memoirs of the Kentucky Geological 
Survey," vol. IT., 1883. 

8 The earthworks "differ less in kind than in degree from other remains 
respecting which history has not been entirely silent." — Haven. " There is 
nothing indeed in the magnitude and structure of our western mounds which a 
semi-hunter and semi-agricultural population, like that which may be ascribed 
to the ancestors or Indian predecessors of the existing race, could not have ex- 
ecuted." — Schoolcraft. " All these earthworks — and I am inclined to assert 
the same of the whole of those in the Atlantic States and the majority in the 
Mississippi Valley — were the production, not of some mythical tribe of high 
civilization in remote antiquity, but of the identical nations found by the whites 
residing in these regions." — Brinton. " No doubt that they were erected by 
the forefathers of the present Indians." — Gen. Lewis Cass. " Nothing in 
them which may not have been performed by a savage people." — Gallatin. 
" The old idea that the mound builders were peoples distinct from and other 
than the Indians of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and their progenitors, 
appears unfounded in fact, and fanciful." — C. C. Jones. " Mound builders 
were tribes of American Indians of the same race with the tribes now living." 
— Judge M. F. Force. " The progress of discovery seems constantly to 
diminish the distinction between the ancient and modern races ; and it may 



132 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



It is not asserted that the mounds were built by any par- 
ticular tribe, or at any particular period, nor that each and 
every tribe of the Mississippi valley erected such structures, 
nor that there were not differences of culture and pro- 
ficiency in the arts between different tribes of mound 
builders as between the modern Indian tribes now known. 

All that can be claimed is that there is nothing in the 
mounds beyond the power of such people as inhabited the 
region when discovered ; that those people are known to 
have constructed many of the mounds now or recently exist- 
ing, and that there is no evidence that any other or different 
people had any hand in the construction of those mounds 
in regard to which direct historical evidence is wanting. 

" Summing up the results that have been attained, it may 
be safely said that, so far from there being any a priori rea- 
son why the red Indians could not have erected these works, 
the evidence shows conclusively that in New York and the 
Gulf States they did build mounds and embankments that 
are essentially of the same character as those found in 
Ohio." 

" In view of these results, and of the additional fact that 
these same Indians are the only people, except the whites, 
who, so far as we know, have ever held the region over 
which these works are scattered, it is believed that we are 
fully justified in claiming that the mounds and inclosures of 
Ohio, like those in New York and the Gulf States, were the 
work of the red Indians of historic times, or of their imme- 
diate ancestors. To deny this conclusion, and to accept its 
alternative, ascribing these remains to a mythical people of 
a different civilization, is to reject a simple and satisfactory 
explanation of a fact in favor of one that is far-fetched and 
incomplete, and this is neither science nor logic." — (Carr, 
/. c, p. 107.) 



not be very wide of the truth to assert that they were the same people." — 
Lapham. See Carr, /. c, p. 4, note. 



CHAPTER IV. 



POTTERY, WEAPONS, AND ORNAMENTS OF THE MOUND 

BUILDERS. 

The humblest forms of ceramic art were among the first 
inventions of the human race. Dishes of some sort are in- 
dispensable for holding the food of man, and no matter how 
remote the age to which we look back, we find them among 
the relics telling of his presence. They were used in re- 
ligious ceremonies ; they played a part in funereal honors in 
countries differing greatly from each other, and in accordance 
with a sacred rite they were placed beside the dead. A 
potter's college was founded at Rome by Numa ; a family 
of potters, workmen of the king, is mentioned in the gene- 
alogy of the tribe of Judah, and the author of Ecclesiastes 
speaks of them seated near the wheel that they turn with 
their feet. Agathocles, King of Sicily, according to Dio- 
dorus Siculus, gave to his friends vases of precious metals, 
telling them that they were copied from earthenware models 
fashioned by himself when he was a potter ; and every one 
has heard of the curious pottery discovered at Troy by Dr. 
Schliemann. The most beautiful belonged to the town of 
Dardanus, of which it is related that it was destroyed by his 
grandson Hercules. 1 All these sorts of pottery, however, 
show an already considerable advance in ceramic art, and we 
are doubtless far from any knowledge of the very first essays 
of this description ; they would be too coarsely executed and 
too badly baked to have been preserved to our day. In the 
earliest days of his existence, man must have observed the 
adhesiveness and plasticity of the damp clay lying at his 
feet. 2 Chance perhaps in the first instance may have led 

1 " Iliad," Book V., verse 642. 

2 " Clay is a material so generally diffused, and its plastic nature so easily dis- 

133 



t 



134 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



him to knead it ; a ball, the plaything of the moment, flung 
hastily away, may have been hardened by the powerful rays 
of the sun. The impressions made upon it resembled those 
in the rock, where the same man went to draw the water he 
needed. Facts such as these could not have escaped his ob- 
servation, and appealed to the love of imitation innate in 
human nature. Fire was found to dry his rude pots quicker 
than the sun, and man learned to turn it to account. The 
cooking of his food was one of man's first advances, and was 
once considered as the primary distinction between him and 
an animal ; observation supplemented by reflection must 
have led him to encase in earth the food or the calabashes 
he submitted to the heat of his fire. Goguet relates that in 
1503 Captain Gonneville visited some Indians who had 
amongst them wooden dishes, which they covered with a 
thick coating of clay before putting them near the fire. 1 
Cook mentions 2 dishes seen at Unalashka " made of a flat 
stone with sides of clay not unlike a standing pye." In 
other places pots have been met with which appear to have 
been hardened by putting red-hot coals in the interior. 3 

The natives of Murray Island cook their food in a hole dug 
in the earth, which they are careful to line with well kneaded 
clay before lighting the fire. The Indians of the Gulf of 
Florida moulded their pottery on gourds, and to support the 
large pots until baked they covered them with baskets made 
of rushes, creepers, or even of netting, the marks of which 
on the baked clay can still be made out. 4 Some must have 
been moulded on or in coarse tissues, or wooden moulds, 
which were destroyed in the baking, though indelible 

covered, that the art of working it does not exceed the intelligence of the 
rudest savage." Birch : " Ancient Pottery," Introduction, p. I. 

1,1 Memoire touchant l'etablissement d'une mission chretienne dans le troisi- 
eme monde, autrement appele la Terre Australe," Paris, 1663, published by 
the Abbe Paulmier de Gonneville, one of the descendants of the captain. 

2 " Voyage to the Pacific Ocean," 1784, vol. II., p. 511. 

3 One of these can be seen in the Peabody Museum. It is marked No. 7,750 
in the catalogue. 

4 Rau : "Indian Pottery," Smiths. Contr., 1866. Tylor : "Early History 
of Mankind," p. 73. 



POTTERY, WEAPONS, AND ORNAMENTS. 



135 



traces of them exist to this day. Many methods may have 
been employed in the fabrication of the first pottery ; 
probably all were tried and led to or perfected this useful 
discovery. 

As already stated, fragments of pottery have been found 
in America in the caves which were the first dwelling-places 
of man, under the shell-heaps which bear witness to his long 
sojourn ; but it is chiefly in the mounds, and above all in the 
sepulchral mounds, that the most important specimens have 
been found. 

Funeral vases date from the most remote antiquity. The 
belief in immortality, with which human nature is so deeply 
imbued, is vividly revealed. Man, however savage, however 
degraded we may suppose him to be, looks confidently be- 
yond this life, which for him passes so rapidly away. He 
does not admit that he is to disappear for ever, like the grass 
he treads beneath his feet, or the animals subject to his 
needs or his pleasures. His imagination doubtless does not 
soar beyond the enjoyments of a purely material existence, 
free from work and anxiety ; but he endeavors to assure to 
those he has loved here that existence in the unknown world 
to which death has taken them. Hence the numerous and 
varied objects found in tombs, secret tokens left by men of 
every age and every clime. 

It is in the valleys of the Missouri and its tributaries that 
we meet with the pieces of pottery most interesting alike in 
their form and ornamentation. 1 The country had been in- 
habited by men owning towns, a government, a religious 
system, and artistic tastes — tribes more advanced in culture 
than many of their relatives the Indians with whom the 
French, the first explorers of the Mississippi and the Mis- 
souri, had later to contend. St. Louis, one of the towns 
founded by the French, is sometimes called Mound City, on 
account of the number of mounds surrounding it, and which 
long remained unnoticed by the rough laborers who were 



1 E. Evers : " Ancient Pottery of Missouri," Saint Louis Academy of Sciences, 
1880. Conant : " Footprints of Vanished Races," Saint Louis, 1879. 



136 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



the first colonists of the country. Judging from the objects 
they contain, these mounds are less ancient than those of 
Ohio or of Wisconsin. The fragments of pottery found in 
them are innumerable. One mound is mentioned in which 
more than a thousand specimens have been collected. 1 The 
burial-places excavated at Sandy Woods have yielded nearly 
as many. 2 Some suppose the numerous fragments found in 
some parts of Michigan to point to the existence of actual 
manufactories. 3 The collections of the St. Louis Academy 
contain four thousand carefully selected specimens, and 
doubtless a very much greater number must have been des- 
troyed and scattered before their importance was suspected. 
In the state of Vermont, for instance, only six pieces are 
mentioned as intact amongst all those discovered. 4 These 
fragments, which have defied the wear and tear of centuries,, 
are the imperishable witnesses of men, the very memory of 
whom has been completely lost to those who succeeded 
them. 

The pottery manufactured in America was evidently 
very superior to that produced in Europe during the same 
period of development. 5 ' It is also probable that many of 
the numerous fragments of which we were unable to fix the 
date belong to very remote epochs. They are rarely as- 
sociated with metal objects, and the only weapons of the 
Mound Builders were hatchets, knives, or arrows of stone, 

1 This number need not surprise us. Who does not know the hill at Rome 
formed entirely of fragments of the pottery of the ancient Romans, and, to 
quote but one other example, at Aries fragments have been found in sufficient 
quantities for the embankments of the railway crossing the northern part of 
the Camargue to be exclusively formed of them, for a distance of about one and 
a quarter miles. 

2 W. P. Potter: "Arch. Remains in S. E. Missouri," Saint Louis Acad, of 
Sciences, 1880. 

3 Gillman : " Report, Peabody Museum," vol. I. 

4 G. H. Perkins : " General Remarks upon the Arch, of Vermont," Proc. 
Am. Assoc. for the Advancement of Science, St. Louis, 1878. 

5 Among none of the Western nations of Europe, not even among the Swiss 
Lake Dwellers, whose civilization was in some respects far advanced, do we 
know of these little figures representing either men or animals. 



POTTERY, 



WEAPONS, AND ORNAMENTS* 



137 



which resemble alike in form and workmanship those of 
Europe, dating from the period to which archaeologists have 
given the name of the Stone age. 

The pottery of the Mound Builders was manufactured of a 
clay of a fairly dark gray color, sometimes verging on blue; 
to give this clay more consistency the potter mixed it in 
Mississippi with sand and fragments of shells, in Vermont 
with bits of quartz, mica, or feldspar, and in other places 
with little nodules of carbonate of lime. 1 The thickest and 
clumsiest of the pieces were the only ones in which this 
precaution was not taken. On the other hand the finer 
pieces of pottery were mixed with gypsum, by which means 
lighter shades of color were obtained. When sufficiently 
kneaded and shaped to the form required, the workman 
smoothed the surface with his hand and dried the vase, 
probably first in the sun and later in a fierce fire, which was 
a very imperfect mode of baking. In their remarkable work 
on the mounds of the Mississippi valley, Squier and Davis 
assert the existence of real ovens, 2 intended for baking pot- 
tery. Other explorers speak of similar ovens near Cedar 
City, which rises from the ruins of an old Aztec town. 3 
Nothing however, proves them to be of very remote an- 
tiquity, and it is probable that their construction indicates a 
progress that time alone could have brought about. Neither 
is it impossible that the ancient Americans employed a pro- 
cess, till quite recently in use amongst the Indians of Cali- 
fornia, who placed the pieces of pottery to be baked in large 
holes dug in the earth, and heated by means of fires made of 
blazing chips of wood. 4 Other methods too may have been 
adopted ; but with regard to them as with those just men- 
tioned nothing positive can be asserted. 

1 W. de Hass : " Arch, of the Mississippi Valley," Proc. Am. Assoc., Chicago, 
1868. 

2 "An. Mon. of the Mississippi Valley." Bancroft says: "Pottery kilns 
were found in the South ; but that they were the work of the Mound Builders 
has not been satisfactorily proven." — " The Native Races," Vol. IV., p. 7S0. 

3 Remy and Brenchley : " A Journey to Great Salt Lake City." London, 
1 861. 

4 Schumacher : " Report, Peabody Museum," 1879, vol. II., p. 521, et seq. 



138 



PKE-HIS TORIC A M ERICA . 



It was later too that the native races of America employed 
"moulds. This method was certainly known to the Mexicans 
and Peruvians, the moulds found in very different places 
leave no doubt as to that point ; but moulding must have 
been preceded by a long course of tentative efforts. We 
have mentioned gourds, baskets of canes or creepers, coated 
inside or outside with clay and then subjected to heat. 
Such were doubtless the earliest attempts ; numerous frag- 
ments that have been collected bear marks of their origin, 
and in the dough there are bits of charcoal which probably 
originated in the vegetable substances employed. 1 It would 
be impossible to name all the methods employed, but it may 
be imagined that they would vary according to time and 
place. \ x The pottery of Missouri was superior to that of 
Ohio, that of Kentucky or that of Virginia cannot compare 
with that of Illinois, and that of Michigan is probably the 
coarsest of all.'- If, which is not certain, these pieces of 
pottery date from the same epoch, the differences between 
them are explained by the rarity, perhaps even the total ab- 
sence, of communication between tribes scattered over vast 
stretches of country, and absorbed in the material difficul- 
ties of life. 

The size of the pots naturally varies according to their 
purpose. Some hold a few pints, others several quarts. 
Cockburn, one of the few travellers who during the last cen- 
tury succeeded in crossing the continent from the Gulf of 
Honduras to the Great South Sea, 2 mentions one which held 
ten gallons, and others yet larger may be found, especially 
among the Pueblo people and other tribes of New Mexico. 

The potter's wheel seems to have been unknown in North 

1 Prof. Swallow verified this fact in his excavations of Big Mound (Fig. 31). 
" Report, Peabody Museum," vol. I. 

2 "A Journey Overland, from the Gulf of Honduras to the Great South 
Sea." London, 1735. In 1527 four of the companions of Pamfilo de Narvaez, 
after the failure of their efforts at colonization in Florida, started from the Gulf 
of Mexico for the Pacific. This first transcontinental expedition took nine 
years, and was accomplished at the cost of extraordinary sufferings, of which an 
account has been given by Cabeca de Vaca, one of the explorers. " Ternaux 
Compans," vol. VII., first series. Perkins: Am. Assoc., Buffalo, 1876. 



POTTERY, WEAPONS, AND ORNAMENTS. 



139 



as well as in South America. Considering, however, the 
finish and symmetry of certain specimens which have come 
down to us, it is difficult to believe that the workmen had no 
mechanical process by means of which to ensure uniformity 
of pressure. Such was the opinion of eminent archaeologists, 
after an attentive examination of several pieces of pottery 
found in excavations made near New Madrid. 1 Unfortu- 




Fig. 39. — Bottle of baked clay found in a mound in Missouri. 

nately these specimens fell to pieces as soon as they were ex- 
posed to the air, so that further examination is impossible, 
and the problem remains unsolved. 

^ The great varieties of form assumed by American pottery 
resemble strangely these of the Old World, alike of pre-his- 
toric 2 and of modern times. 3 Everywhere, we repeat, the same 

Sonant : " Footprints of Vanished Races." 

2 The pieces of pottery found under the mounds may be compared especially 
with those from the covered way of West Kennet, Wiltshire, England. 

3 In March, 1882, a Japanese book containing a description of the shell 
mounds of Omori, Japan, was presented to the Anthropological Society. 
Numerous fragments of pottery were found at Omori, and their resemblance to 
those of the American mounds was very striking. 



140 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



needs have led man to make the same efforts of intelligence 
and to produce the same creations of industry. Some of 
these vases are painted, the colors chiefly employed being- 
black and very dark gray. Red, yellow, white, and brown 
vases are, however, met with ; these colors, being generally 
added after baking, have little stability, and in spite of every 
precaution they scale off or are rubbed out very rapidly. 
Sometimes the ornaments stand out in different colors, al- 
ways shaded with great taste, as proved by numerous ex- 




Fig. 40. — Jar found in a Ohio mound. 

amples which might be given. 1 One little vase about eight 
inches high is decorated with black and red lines on the neck 
and red and white on the body. Another has six concentric 
circles of red and white alternately, and in the centre of 
each circle a St. Andrew's cross in white. One bottle has 
rays of equal size in brown, white, and bright red (fig. 39). 
A vase from Ohio merits representation (fig. 40), on account 

1 Those who are especially interested in this question may consult a recent 
wofk, Dr. Ed. Evers' " Contributions to the Archaeology of Missouri," part I., 
Pottery. Salem, Massachusetts, 1880. We have borrowed largely from it. 



POTTERY, WEAPONS, AND ORNAMENTS. 



of its complicated ornamentation, in which some think they 
can make out a bird's head. It is the same with a vase found 
in Arkansas and decorated with finely executed representa- 
tions of bones of the dead (fig. 41). 1 Some pieces of pottery 
recently found and deposited in the St. Louis museum are 
said to recall, in the figures with which they are decorated, 
Egyptian or Etruscan art. These figures have not yet been 
published, so that we must content ourselves with mention- 




imil'lillliinii^ 

Fig. 41, — Vases from the tumuli of Arkansas. 

ing the fact, reserving our opinion until further information 
is obtained. In the course of this work we shall have 
occasion to refer to other no less curious and important 
resemblances. 

We do not know what was the substance employed in 
coloring pottery, but some red ochre has been found in a 

1 We reproduce this curious vase, but we believe it to date from a less ancient 
period. The same style of decoration is, however, met with amongst the 
aborigines of America, and Bancroft speaks of a stone seen at Nohpat, Yucatan, 
on which are engraved representations of human skulls and cross-bones. 



142 



PPE-HIS TOPIC A ME PICA . 



vase, which may have been used for this purpose. Some of 
the colors seem to have been fixed by means of a varnish, of 
which traces are supposed to have been found. 1 This pro- 
cess was certainly known to the Mexicans and the Peruvians, 
but it was more rarely employed by the Mound Builders. 
We are ignorant as to what this glaze was made of. One 
thing only is certain, that the metallic varnish used in mod- 
ern potteries, and that of more complicated composition 
employed for porcelain, were introduced by the Spaniards, 
and no discovery thus far made in America permits us to 
attribute a knowledge of it to the ancient inhabitants. 
Some Americans mention an earthenware vase covered with 




Fig. 42. — Vase found under a sepulchral mound in Missouri. 

a siliceous varnish, found in a mound of Florida; but the 
circumstances of the discovery leave no doubt as to the 
mound having been disturbed. In Europe enamelled 
ceramic work was known in the most remote antiquity, and 
in Egypt we find vases, statuettes, and amulets of glazed 
porcelain dating from the earliest dynasties. 

The ornamentation of these vases, generally very simple, 
usually consists of several rows of dots, such as can be seen 

] Bancroft (vol. IV., p. 714) says : "To this day some of it retains a very 
perfect glaze." Gaspar Castano de Sosa (" Mem. del Descubrimiento, del 
Reino de Leon," 1590) speaking of the pottery of the pueblos of New Mexico, 
says : " Tien en mucha loza de los colorados y pintadas y negras, platos, caxe- 
tessaleros, almoficos, xicaras, muy galanas alguna de la loza esta vidriada." 



POTTERY, WEAPONS, AND ORNAMENTS. 



143 



on the earliest pottery of Europe, and executed, as those 
were, either with the potter's nail, with the end of a pointed 
instrument, a bit of wood or a shell, which give a distinct 
mark without a jagged edge. In other examples we have 
more complicated combinations, lines, circles, ellipses, cres- 
cents, wolf's teeth, zig-zags tastily arranged, so as to obtain 
the happiest effects (fig. 42). Sometimes on the neck or body 
of the vase was the figure of a rope or a creeper. Gillman 
mentions several pieces of pottery decorated in this manner, 
notably those found at Fort Wayne. 1 Some vases have. 




Fig. 43.— Vase found in the excavations in Missouri, with ornaments in 
relief painted in red of various shades. 

denticulated or fringed edges ; in others the ornaments are 
in relief (fig. 43). These relievos were obtained either by 
moulding the clay itself or by the application of moulds be- 
fore baking. Numbers of these vases had handles, and these 
handles often represented birds, mammals, such as the wolf, 
the fox, and further south the llama, and even human figures. 
It would take a long time to describe all the varieties ; as it 

1 " Proc. Am. Assoc.," Buffalo, 1876. This mode of ornamentation was fre- 
quently employed in Maine, Massachusetts, Missouri, Illinois, Ohio, Tennessee, 
and Florida. "Report, Peabody Museum," 1872. 



144 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



is evident that the potters were always at work, striving to 
satisfy their artistic tastes. They appear, however, to have 
been held in small esteem in Central America, if we are to 
accept the words of the Popol Vuh 1 : " You will no longer 
be fit for any thing but to make earthenware things, such as 
pie-dishes or saucepans, or to cultivate maize ; and the 
beasts that live in the shrubbery will be your only portion." 

Any description of this pottery is difficult, if not impossi- 
ble. It is as if one attempted to describe all the things now 
to be found in the shop of a famous dealer in crockery. We 



Fig. 44. — Bottle or vase, with a neck of remarkable delicacy ; New Madrid, 
Missouri ; 84- inches high. 

will endeavor to class the vases found under the mounds, 
according to the shape of the specimens and the purpose for 

1 The Popol Vuh, the name of which maybe translated " Collection of 
Leaves," is written in the Qquiche language, and was discovered in the second 
half of the 16th century, by a Dominican monk in a village of Guatemala. It 
contains several details strangely resembling those of Genesis, and some have 
seen in them an adaptation, by a pious fraud, of Indian mythologies to 
the dogmas of Christianity. Such was not the opinion of Brother Ximenes, 
who was the first to reproduce the Popol Vuh, and did not hesitate to call 
it the work of the Devil. It was republished at Vienna in 1857 by Dr. C. 
Scherzer, and in jS6i the Abbe Brasseur de Bourbourg, who characterized 
it as a sacred book, issued it again. The original text is not extant; it was 
evidently written or corrected after the Spanish conquest, for one of the 
Indian chiefs is mentioned by his Spanish name. In spite, therefore, of M. 
Brasseur de Bourbourg's opinion, we can place but a very limited reliance on 
this book. 



POTTERY, WEAPONS, AND ORNAMENTS. 1 45 

which they seem to have been intended ; we shall then have 
certain data to go upon. 

Perhaps more vases with necks have been found than any 
other kind. They were probably used to hold liquids; most 
of them are black and carefully moulded ; they recall the 
vases known to travellers as "monkeys," still used by the 
Spaniards and the inhabitants of South America, to keep 
their drinking-water cool (figs. 39, 44, and 46). The porosity 
of the clay leads to evaporation, hence rapid cooling. Some 




Fig. 45. — Vase found in a child's grave in Tennessee. 

vessels have a swelling at the base ; ethers are ovoid and are 
pierced with lateral holes through which were passed cords 
to hang the vases up by. We give a representation of a 
vase with three feet (fig. 45), discovered beneath a mound in 
Tennessee which had served as the grave of a child. It 
is black and was merely baked in the sun ; the feet are 
hollow and connected with the body of the vase. 1 Others 

1 Putnam : " Report, Peabocfy Museum," 1878, vol. II. Dr. Habel (" Smith. 



146 



P RE-HI S TOPIC A ME PIC A . 



have been found provided with a stopper, also of earthen- 
ware ; one of them still contained the traces of a red 
liquid that could not be analyzed. 1 The ornamentation 




Fig. 46. — Vase with spiral grooving in the Museum of the Academy of 
Sciences, St. Louis. 




Fig. 47. — Vase found in a grave in Missouri. 



Cont.," vol. XXII.), speaks of similar vases near San Salvador, and in Nicara- 
gua. The feet enclose little clay balls. Bancroft (vol. IV., p. 19), also men- 
tions some found under the huacas of Chiriqui. 
1 Conant : " Footprints of Vanished Races." 



POTTERY, WEAPONS, AND ORNAMENTS. 



H7 



is very varied and resembles that we have before described. 
The St. Louis museum possesses amongst other specimens a 
bottle (fig. 46), in which we notice a series of swellings and 
depressions, forming a regular spiral. Although the form is 
still graceful the vases used for cooking purposes are notice- 
able for the coarseness of their execution and ornamentation 
(figs. 42, 47, 48, and 49). They generally have a large 




Fig. 48. — Vase with handles from a sepulchral mound in Tennessee. 




Fig. 49. — Vessel with four handles, six inches high by about eight in diameter. 

opening sometimes provided with a cover to hasten boiling. 
Nearly all have one or more handles, by means of which they 
can be more easily moved. One is mentioned with a long 
handle like those of our saucepans (fig. 50) ; others have the 
edges pinched out so as to form a spout (fig. 51). Several 
of these vessels bear marks of long usage, and retain traces 
of the fire on which they had been placed. 



143 PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 

In excavations we also often meet with pieces of black earth- 
enware, the body of which is elliptical, of careful execution, 
and having a handle on one side often representing a bird, 
and on the other a brim or knob by which they can the more 




Fig. 50. — Black cooking pot of coarse execution, found beneath a mound in 

Missouri. 




Fig. 51. — Vessel with a spout. Missouri. 

easily be held (fig. 52). Some are almost completely closed, 
and have but one orifice, large or small ; others contain 
some little pellets of clay, intended to make a rattling noise. 



POTTERY, WEAPONS, AND ORNAMENTS. 



149 



These vessels do not appear ever to have been subjected to 
the heat of an oven ; hence the hypothesis that they may 
have been used as lamps, and their comparison with Etruscan 
or Roman lamps. This would certainly be an interesting 
fact, but it appears to us most improbable ; for, the vases of 
this kind found as yet show no traces either of oil or of any 
fatty matter used for lighting purposes. 




Fig. 52. — Vessel found in Missouri. (Half natural size.) 




Fig. 53. — Basin, with a rough attempt at ornamentation. (Diameter, nine 
inches ; height, eight.) 

Basins, generally pretty rare, are the coarsest in execution 
of all the pottery preserved in the St. Louis museum ; from 
which, without any good foundation, it has been decided 
that they are of the greatest antiquity. We give illustra- 
tions of two of these basins (figs. 53 and 54), of different 



i 5 o 



PKE-HIS TOPIC A M ERICA . 



forms, from which it is easy to judge of their use and the 
mode of their construction. They are of black earthen- 
ware, and one of them shows a rough attempt at ornamenta- 
tion. 1 

Cups, which doubtless served as drinking-vessels, are 
small, round or oval, and always provided with a handle, 
often representing the head of a man or of an animal. We 




Fig. 54. — Basin found in Missouri (one third natural size), in black sun-dried 
earthenware, of a somewhat rare form. 




Fig. 55. — Drinking-vessel with the head of an owl. 

shall speak further on of these imitations of animate ob- 
jects, but will content ourselves now with mentioning two 
of these cups, both from mounds near New Madrid ; the 
handle of the first (fig. 55) is the head of an owl, which is so 
like those found at Santorin or at Troy, that they might be 
mistaken the one for the other ; the second (fig. 56) is of 



1 A basin exactly similar has been found in the pre-historic camp of Catenoy, 
Oise, France. 



POTTERY, WEAPONS, AND ORNAMENTS. I 5 I 



very fine execution, and the handle represents the head of 
an animal. 

We have already stated how very numerous funeral vases 
are. In certain sepulchral mounds of Missouri, as many as 
eight hundred or a thousand specimens have been found. 
It is easy to recognize that they had been used in accordance 
with some rite consecrated by usage or superstition, and the 
form varies according to whether the vase was placed near 
the head, the feet, or the pelvis of the skeleton. This posi- 
tion of the vases has been noted especially at Sandy Woods 
settlement. 1 In Tennessee, the vases were generally placed 
at the head of the body ; in Mississippi, many contained 
food prepared for the deceased. 




Fig. 56. — Drinking-vessel with the head of an animal. 

It is the same in other regions where the food-vessels — such 
is, the characteristic name given to them — are filled with the 
shells of mollusca, chiefly mussels, or with carbonized fruits, 
amongst which some wild grapes are supposed to have been 
recognized. These were doubtless provisions for the great 
journey. In other graves have been collected now a shell, 
now a fragment of a bone, now a little vase of ovoid form, 
simple amulets intended to protect the deceased. Lastly, 
some urns, which must have contained the ashes of the de- 
parted after cremation. One of those found in excavations 
in Utah shov/s the form of most frequent occurrence (fig. 
105.) 

The number of pipes found in mounds is very consider- 

1 W. P. Potter: "Arch. Remains in S. E. Missouri," St. Louis Acad, of 
Sciences, 1880. 



152 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



able. We give illustrations of two : one of them, found in 
a sepulchral chamber in Tennessee, is so like those now in 
use that they might be taken for each other (fig. 57); the 
other, a rough imitation of the human figure, comes from a 
mound in Missouri (fig. 58). 




Fig. 57. — Pipe from a sepulchral chamber in Tennessee. 




Fig. 58. — Earthenware pipe from Missouri. 

Dr. Habel mentions, from near San Salvador, in Central 
America, 1 two pipes about four inches high, with about the 

. 1 " Smithsonian Contributions," vol. XXII. The same excavations have 
yielded a considerable number of pieces of pottery, amongst which is an imita- 
tion of an old man's head of fairly remarkable character. 



POTTERY, WEAPONS, AND ORNAMENTS. 



153 



same diameter, covered with red and white figures. A hole 
had been made for the introduction of the stem. This is a 
fact of rare occurrence in these regions, where the use of 
tobacco was less widespread than among the Mound 
Builders. 1 

Some pieces of pottery represent fruits which, like pump- 
kins, figs, or pears, are of rounded form. The neck of a 
bottle was often superposed upon such a model. The imi- 




FlG, 59. — Red vase with neck and a snake coiled about the body, found in 
excavations in Missouri. 

tation is generally exact, and the artist may have obtained 
it either by copying or by moulding the fruit before him. 

These are not the only imitations which are hidden away 
in graves ; the mounds of Missouri and Mississippi have 
yielded numerous representations, now of men, now of 
animals. It is noticeable that such are extremely rare in 
the New England States. 

We may mention among such forms, snakes (fig. 59)> bears 



1 Oviedo was the first Spanish writer to mention the use of tobacco. His 
book, " Natural Historia de las Indias," was printed at Toledo in 1529. 



*54 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



(fig. 60 ?), pigs (fig. 61), fish (fig. 62), frogs, turtles very per- 
fectly copied, and birds, including the common brown owl, 
the long-eared owl and the duck. Ducks especially were 
carefully studied, and different species are quite recognizable. 
Surely a very long time must have been required for the art 
to attain such perfection ; generations of artists must have 
been needed for the creation of the art itself. 

We must not omit to mention certain figures of animals 
often found in the mounds. The head resembles that of our 
domestic pig ; but this animal appears to have been un- 




FiG. 60. — Painted vase found in a sepulchral mound in Tennessee. 

known before the Spanish conquest. 1 The species most 
nearly resembling it is the peccary (Dicoty/es, Cuvier), of the 
hog family, which has no tail ; whilst the creature under 
notice always has one, and this tail is often turned up. 
Other authorities think the figure represents the hippopota- 

1 Garcilasso de la Vega (' ' los Commentaries reales que tratan de l'Origen de los 
Yncas, Reyes que fueron del Peru," Lisbon, 1609), says that the ancient Peru- 
vians had pigs in their mountains, greatly resembling those of Europe. 



POTTERY, WEAPONS, AND ORNAMENTS. 



155 



mus, but this pachyderm has never, so far as we know, lived 
in the New World. The object intended is very possibly the 
opossum. The size of these vases varies greatly. Some are 
very small, of yellow earthenware, and covered with zigzag- 
designs in various colors, among which red and white pre- 
dominate. Others, on the contrary, those found in the State 




Fig. 61. — Vase with handles, representing the head of a pig. 




Fig. 62. — Vase of a clear yellow color, baked with fire. Missouri. 

of Vermont for instance, are capable of holding over six gal- 
lons. The larger ones often have human faces joined to the 
hinder parts of animals. The animals thus represented are 
not, however, as has been supposed, so much alike that they 
can be taken to represent a single characteristic form. 



i 5 6 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



Neither are representations of man wanting. Some, exe~ 
cuted with talent, are true portraits, and each one, whatever 
may be the form of the vase it is intended to decorate, presents 
a very marked individual character (figs. 63, 64, and 65). 




Fig. 63. — Drinking-vase, over 4^ inches high by 9 inches at its greatest 

diameter. 




Fig. 64. — Water-bottle, 8-| inches high, found under a mound near Belmont, 

Missouri. 

The St. Louis museum possesses a bottle, the neck of which 
has been broken, bearing four medallions representing human 
figures incrusted in the clay before baking. A vase found 



POTTERY, WEAPONS, AND ORNAMENTS. I $ J 

in the very fruitful excavations at New Madrid also deserves 
mention. The figures, it is true, are designed without art, 




Fig. 65. — Black pottery vase. Missouri. 

but they are valuable as showing the kind of garments worn 
by the Mound Builders. The most important represents a 




* 



FlG. 66. — Figure m black pottery found in Missouri ; one third natural size. 

flowing robe, or, to be more exact, a blouse somewhat like 
those worn by the French, drawn in at the waist and reach- 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



ing to the knees. We may also notice another representing 
a man lying on his back, with the arms and legs roughly 
imitated. This vase was emptied through a neck springing 
from the navel of the figure. In a grave of Missouri pieces 
of pottery have been collected ornamented with designs 
representing heads, busts, and even the entire bodies of 
women. 




Fig. 67. — Vase found in Missouri. A second face is joined to the back of the 
first, and the opening is on one side ; one fourth natural size. 

Side by side with these pieces of pottery thousands of 
others are found with nothing human about them. There 
are also caricatures. 1 That most frequently met with repre- 
sents a crouching woman, with hanging breasts, and arms 
resting on the knees. The constant repetition of this figure 
has led to the supposition that it was an idol — one of the 
malevolent goddesses whose anger had to be averted. But 
the want of foundation for this conclusion appears in the 
fact that the vases always have an opening in the back of the 

x Such human caricatures are met with in the most divers localities ; among 
other places the island of Ometepec, Lake Nicaragua, is noted for them. (Figs. 
66, 67, and 68.) 



POTTERY, WEAPONS, AND ORNAMENTS. 



head, clearly indicating that they were used as bottles. We 
may remark that so far but few indecent objects have been 
found, though they were numerous among the ancient peo- 
ples of Europe ; reproductions of the sexual organs have 
rarely come to light, 1 which fact is an important testimony 
to the morality of these primitive people. 

The disposition of the Mound Builders for copying forms 
which they saw about them is characteristic of many of the 
American races. So in a less degree is the superiority of 
their pottery. If indeed the American mound pottery 




Fig. 68. — Bottle representing a woman. 



be compared with that from the middens of the Lake Dwel- 
lers of Switzerland, who are supposed to have reached a 
similar stage of civilization, one is astonished at the in- 
feriority of the latter. Lately excavations have been made 

1 We may instance a few examples: "In altre provincie," said one of the 
companions of Cortez, " e particularemente in quella di Panuco, adoravano il 
membro che portano gli huomini fra le gambe." — " Relazione d' alcune cose 
della Nueva Spagna." Dr. Jones (" Smith. Cont.," vol. XXII.) mentions a 
phallic pipe and Heywood a phallus found near Chillicothe ("Natural and 
Aboriginal Hist, of Tennessee," p. 115). Others are also known which came 
from Alameda county, California. In other places, in Smith county, and in 
the island of Zapatero, Costa Rica, for instance, idols are spoken of with the 
me?7ibrum virile in erectione. Stephens tells of ornaments in several temples of 
Yucatan representing mejnbra conjuncta in coitu. Pieces of Peruvian pottery 
of the same kind are met with, but they are exceptions. Father Kircher, how- 
ever, and Bancroft following him, believe in the former existence in America 
of a Phallic cultus, such as undoubtedly existed in the Old World. 



i6o 



PRE- HIS TORIC A ME RICA . 



in some tumuli on the practising ground of the school of 
artillery at Tarbes, on the borders of the departments of des 
Hautes et Basses Pyrenees, where vases were found dating 
probably from Gallo-Roman times ; they are inferior alike in 
material, execution, and ornamentation to those of the 
American races. It is the same with the vases found by 
Chantre near Samthravo. 1 We content ourselves with 
these facts, though examples might be multiplied. It is 
probable that the presence of a good material for pottery 
had more or less to do with progress in ceramic art, and that 
the absence of suitable clays accounts in part for the wretched 
pottery of northeastern American races as it certainly does 
in the extreme northwest of the continent. 

It may be also remarked that the considerable differences in 
execution between pieces of pottery found in a single undis- 
turbed mound cannot be held to decide that they do 
not date from the same period, or that the differences 
observed are due to progress in the manufacture and the 
natural result of the development of the aesthetic feeling of 
the people. Probably, we have to deal with the products of 
the work of more or less skilled or more or less intelligent 
artisans, with work intended for more or for less important 
uses, or, and this is a yet simpler explanation, with the pot- 
tery of the poor and of the rich. This last is a fact scarcely 
worth discussing, for it is one belonging to all times and 
every people. 

The early inhabitants of America must have been sturdy 
smokers, 2 judging from the number of pipes found in mound 
excavations. * Earthenware pipes have been already men- 
tioned ; others were carved of slate, soapstone 3 (fig. 69), and 

1 Revue d' Ant/irop., April, 1881. 

2 According to Bancroft (vol. II., p. 2SS) the Americans, at the time of the 
Spanish conquest, smoked cigarettes and took snuff. Ameghino (vol. I., p. 354) 
in his turn says: " Es del dominio publico, que el tabaco, es indigeno de 
America." 

3 '• A steatite quarry has been examined near Washington, in which the stone 
.had been quarried with quartzite pickaxes ; dishes and cups, of which there 
were many fragments, were made of this stone. This quarry was probably pre- 



POTTERY, WEAPONS, AND ORNAMENTS. l6l 



marble, more frequently still out of a very hard and resistant 
red or brown porphyry. Some are mere bowls quite prim- 
itive in form ; others represent various animals, such as the 
beaver, the otter, deer, bears, the panther, the wildcat (fig-. 
70), the mud-turtle, the raccoon, squirrels, toads and frogs. 
Birds are perhaps still more numerous. Amongst them we 




Fig. 69. — Soapstone pipe. 



may mention herons, hawks, the paroquet, woodpecker, 
grouse, and the bittern. On a soapstone pipe from Ken- 
tucky an armadillo is supposed to have been recognized ; and 
quite recently in Iowa a pipe has been found made of rather 
soft sandstone, which is claimed to represent an elephant. 1 

It is to be observed, however, that such identifications gen- 
erally owe much to the natural desire to recognize some- 
thing strange or unusual, and also to the want of a sufficient 
knowledge of natural history. A recently published in- 
Columbian, but the date cannot be fixed. Reynolds : " Aboriginal Soapstone 
Quarries in the District of Columbia," " Report, Peabody Museum," 
vol. II. 

1 In the American Antiquarian (March, 1880), the Rev. S. D. Peet announces 
the discovery of a pipe which he believes represents an elephant ; the supposed 
trunk is straight and the smoke escapes through a skilfully contrived hole. 



PRE-H1ST0KIC A M ERICA . 



vestigation of bird-pipes and carvings by a. well-known orni- 
thologist has resulted in demolishing the foundation of much 




Fig. 71. — Pipe representing a woodpecker, or wading bird. 

theorizing which had been based on the identical specimens 
examined. 1 Forgeries are also too common. 



1 II. W. Ilenshaw, 2d Annual Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, Washington, 1884.. 



POTTERY, WEAPONS, AND ORNAMENTS. 1 63 



These designs have often represented the animal in a 
familiar attitude and display true artistic talent. The heron 
holds a fish in its mouth, an otter also carries a fish, and 
a hawk tears a little bird with his claws. Seven heads have 
been found in the mounds of Ohio which are supposed to 
represent the walrus or manatee, but are more probably 
rudely carved otters. 




Fig. 72. — Stone pipe, supposed to represent an elephant, found in Louisa 

county, Iowa. 

The toucan, elephant, and armadillo require a warmer cli- 
mate than that of Ohio or Kentucky ; the manatee, so far as 
the United States are concerned, only lives in Floridian 
waters, where it is now extremely rare, if not extinct as a 
resident, though in former times abundant. 




Fig. 73. — Pipe found in Ohio, representing a heron holding a fish. 

The llama, which has been said to be found sculptured on 
rocks on the banks of the Susquehanna, belongs to the fauna 
of the South. All accounts of these animals, in connection 
with aboriginal relics found in the United States, may there- 
fore be regarded either as wrong identifications of the rudely 



164 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



carved or mutilated figures referred to, as representing ani- 
mals with which the carvers had become acquainted either by 
report or by journeys and migrations, or as forgeries. 

At Mound City four pipes have been dug out, each rep- 
resenting a human profile of a very characteristic Indian 
type 1 (fig. 74). One of them, cut in a very hard and compact 
black stone, wears a peculiar head-dress. The hair is plaited, 
and round the forehead were fifteen pearl beads, which had 
been calcined. The face is covered with incised lines, form- 
ing regular tatooing, the mouth is compressed, the eyes are 




Fig. 74. — Pipes found at Mound City. 

large, the ears are pierced. Another type represents a 
woman, and may be compared as far as execution goes with 
the Mexican and Peruvian sculptures. 2 A pipe from Con- 
necticut represents the bust of a woman, with the wrists 
and shoulders laden with ornaments ; another, found in 

1 Schoolcraft, vol. I, pi. xiii. 

3 See Garcilasso de la Vega, Book VI., p. 1S7. Peter Martyr d' Anghiera : 
De Novo Orbe," Dec. 187. Clavigero : " Hist. Antigua de Mejico," 2 vols., 
8°. London, 1826. 



POTTERY, WEAPONS, AND ORNAMENTS. 



Virginia, presents a type which may be compared with the 
antique Egyptian ; and yet another pipe from Missouri, in 
very hard sandstone, represents a man's head, with a pointed 
beard somewhat like that seen in the Assyrian monoliths of 
the British Museum. 1 Finally, one of these pipes, dis- 
covered in Indiana, and the last we shall mention, has on 
one side a death's head, and on the other that of a goose. 

It was long supposed that the Mound Builders applied 
their lips to the hole made in the lower part of the bowl, 
and thus inhaled the smoke ; but numerous discoveries have 
modified this opinion. It cannot be doubted that wooden 
stems were used, which, of course, would decay and leave 
no traces. In several places steatite stems have been found, 2 
and Professor Andrews mentions others in earthenware, 
stone, and copper, which he found in Ohio. 3 In California 
they are still more numerous, — even remains of wooden 
stems have been found ; and the Peabody Museum posses- 
ses one such tube from Massachusetts. Long ago, Squier 
spoke of similar stems in the Mississippi valley, 4 and bone 
tubes have been found as far north as Canada. At Swanton, ^ 
Vermont, 5 an old burial-place has been discovered, in the 
midst of a forest where venerable trees replaced others yet 
more ancient. Here the excavations yielded numerous 
copper tubes, the length of which varied from three to four 
inches. The sheet of copper had been drawn out, beaten, 
and rolled in a manner giving a very high idea of the skill 
of the workman. Some tubes again are of stone, without 
ornament ; on one, however, a bird is engraved (fig. 75) re- 
sembling a spread eagle. 6 

1 Am. Ant., Jan., 1SS1. 

2 Schoolcraft, vol. I., p. 93, pi. xxxii. and xxxiii. 

3 " Explorations of Mounds in S. E., Ohio," " Report, Peabody Museum,"' 
1877. 

4 " Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley," " Smith. Cont.," vol. I., 
p. 224, fig. 122, 125. 

5 G. H. Perkins: " On an Ancient Burial-ground in Swanton, Vermont," 
"Rep. Am. Assoc.," Portland, 1873. 

6 Beneath the bird three little marks can easily be made out. — (American 
Antiq., March, 1SS0). These have been supposed to be letters ; but nothing 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



What was the use of these tubes, met with in such differ- 
ent places? Putnam thinks that a great many of them were 
the stems of pipes, 1 other authorities look upon them as in- 
struments of music ; several cf them, notably those found at 
Swanton, are, however, not pierced, which contradicts both 
hypotheses and, on the assumption that they were finished 
implements, leaves us in complete uncertainty. Rau thinks 
these tubes were used in the operations of medicine-men or 
sorcerers, so numerous in Indian tribes, and the German 
traveller, Kohl, states that he saw a medicine-man use the 
hollow bone of a wild goose to operate on his patient. 





Fig. 75. — Bird engraved on a stone tube from Swanton, Vermont. 

AVe have dwelt on every thing relating to pipes, because, 
after the pottery, they are the most important objects 
hitherto found, and also because this taste for modelling 
men or animals is very remarkable. 

Besides the human figures used as ornaments on pottery 
or pipes, we meet with others, which have been taken for 
images of divinities supposed to be adored by the early in- 

as yet justifies us in supposing that the Mound Builders were sufficiently ad- 
vanced in civilization to have an alphabet. 

1 This was also Squier's opinion after his discovery at Chillicothe of a tube 
carved in slate, thirteen inches long, ending in a mouthpiece. " Ancient Mon. 
of the Mississippi Valley." See also Cortereal, " Voy. aux Indes occidentals, " 
Amsterdam, 1722, vol. I., p. 39. 



POTTERY, WEAPONS, AND ORNAMENTS. 1 67 



"habitants of North America. In Tennessee 1 many stone, 
steatite, sandstone, and terra-cotta figures have been found ; 
in Knox county, an image hewn out of stalactite, about 
twenty inches in height and weighing over thirty-seven 
pounds. 

A female figure was discovered in the Cumberland valley, 
sculptured of brown sandstone, eleven inches high, with the 
sexual organs very prominent ; in Honduras and Guatemala 
have been found numerous terra-cotta statuettes, called 
manecas by the present inhabitants. All these figures are of 
somewhat similar type, and their execution is always coarse, 
contrasting unfavorably with that of the pottery and other 
carvings. A good many fraudulent figures have turned up 
from time to time in the United States, and the authenticity 
of any such image always requires careful verification. These 
forgeries are the more dangerous since the authors of them 
often arrange that they shall be " accidentally " found by 
some person whose good faith cannot be questioned. 

In some " altar mounds" in Anderson township, near the 
Little Miami River, Ohio, Metz and Putnam found some 
very remarkable objects in 1882. These " altars " are basins 
of clay burned hard, in situ, and on them have been found 
thousands of articles which had been thrown into the fire as 
offerings or sacrifices. Besides native copper, silver, and a 
very little native gold, all hammered into various shapes, a 
considerable amount of meteoric iron, of the variety known 
as pallasite, was found on these altars. There were orna- 
ments of bone, mica, shell disks, canine teeth of the bear and 
other animals, about half a bushel of pearls (recalling the 
story of De Soto's chronicler), and about thirty of the spool- 
shaped copper ear-plugs. On one altar were found several 
terra-cotta figurines quite unlike any thing hitherto found in 
the mounds. They are artistically superior to any figure- 
work yet noted by American aborigines, and were doubtless 

1 Jones : "Smith. Cont.," vol. XXII., p. 128. It is interesting to remem- 
ber that these supposed idols are of the same type as some of the figures made 
by the Toltecs. 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



the product of some workman of very exceptional talent- 
They had represented in their ears the plugs above men- 
tioned, thus determining the use of the specimens found. 
With them were two remarkable stone dishes in form of 
animals, probably mythical in their nature, but admirably 
wrought and polished. These remarkable and unique 
articles have been restored from numerous calcined and 
splintered fragments and of their authenticity there is not 
a shadow of doubt. It is to be hoped that they will be fully 
illustrated and described before long by the authorities of 
the Peabody Museum where they are deposited. 

Stone vases, or jars made of steatite, are also met with, but 
rarely east of the Rocky Mountains. Some of these vases 
have handles. In California cups of serpentine have also 
been found. Every thing was turned to account by the 
aboriginal inhabitants of America, for in the island of Santa 
Barbara plates have been found hollowed out of the centra 
of the vertebrae of large Cetacea. 1 One may be referred to 
which was found in a mound near the Tallahatchee River, 
Lafayette county, Mississippi, provided with a cover which 
closed it hermetically. This jar, which is supposed to have 
been a funeral urn, weighs more than one hundred pounds ; 
the execution is remarkable, the more so when we take into 
account the wretched tools which were all the workmen had 
at their command. 2 

We may also notice life-sized human masks in hard stone, 
which have been occasionally found. We know that the 
Aztecs made similar masks in obsidian or serpentine, and 
placed them on the faces of the dead. The same custom 
prevailed to some extent further north, and was character- 
istic of the Aleuts in historic times, though the masks used 
by them were of wood. 

It was by patient labor, rubbing one stone against another, 
that the Mound Builders executed their sculptures. The 
Mexicans and Peruvians employed the same processes, 

^Ch. Rau : "Smith. Cont.," vol. XXII., p. 37. 

2 Jones: "Smith. Cont.," vol. XXII., p. 144, fig. 85. 



POTTERY, WEAPONS, AND ORNAMENTS. 



169 



after having first rough-hewn the stone with the help of 
obsidian implements. It was natural that the owners of 
objects so laboriously obtained should attach very great 
value to them, and we do in fact meet with pipes mended 
with extreme care. The process was very simple : holes 
were pierced at the edges of the fracture, and little rivets of 
wood or copper were placed in them to keep the pieces to- 
gether. 

Weapons which belonged to the Mound Builders are more 
rare, and if the extent and importance of their fortifications 
had not revealed to us the dangers which threatened them, 
we might have supposed them to have been a peaceful race, 
entirely devoted to agriculture or commerce. We can how- 
ever refer to some very finely executed arrow-points, 1 lance- 
heads, and daggers. In some places regular magazines have 
been found, where numerous spear-heads have been col- 
lected. 

We give illustrations of a couple of serpentine hatchets 
(figs. 76 and 77), from among a number which are so like the 
neolifhic implements of Europe that they might be taken 
for each other.' Squier tells us that this resemblance is so 
striking as to lead at first to the conclusion that they are 
the work of men of the same race ; which conclusion would, 
he thinks, be irresistible if we did not know that the wants 
of man are everywhere the same, and have everywhere led 
him to give to his implements the same form, and to use 
them in the same manner. Similar implements are barely 
o-ut of use in the more remote parts of Alaska. 

Many knives or daggers are of obsidian, (the Itzli of the 
Mexicans) which is a glass of volcanic origin and was known 
in the most remote ages. Pliny (book XXXVI., ch. XXXI.) 
says that the first fragments were found in Ethiopia by Ob- 
sidius, hence the name by which it is known. Great quan- 
tities have been found in Mexico, and it is known from 

1 Lucien Carr (Exploration of a Mound, Lee county, Virginia ; "Report, 
Peabody Museum," vol. II., p. 90) gives illustrations of a quartzite lance- 
point and a chalcedony dagger. 



170 



PRE-HIS TORIC A M ERICA . 



Alaska to Patagonia. In pre-historic times not only weapons 
were made of it, but also jewels, ornaments, and even look- 
ing-glasses. 

s The Mexicans, according to Clavigero, were such expert 
workmen that they were able to turn out a hundred obsidian 
knives in an hour, which is very probable, as they were 
hardly more than elongated flakes of the glassy material. 
The Mexicans also inserted a double row of bits of obsidian 




B 



Figs. 76 and 77. — Serpentine axes. 
A.— Beard's Mound, Ohio. B. — Hill Mound, Ohio. 




FlG. 73. — Serpentine implement found beneath a mound near Big Harpeth 
River, Tennessee. 

in handles of very hard wood, and fastened them in with 
cord and gum. This weapon was wielded with both hands, 
and the Spanish historians speak of the terrible havoc it 
wrought. The Mahquahwitl, as this weapon is called, is 
sculptured on a door-post at Kabah, Yucatan. 1 Judging 
from the fragments of obsidian arranged in regular rows, 
occasionally met with in graves, the Mound Builders may 
have had a very similar weapon. 

1 Bancroft, vol. IV., p. 210. 



POTTERY, WEAPONS, AND ORNAMENTS. \J\ 

It is almost impossible to distinguish between the weapons 
and implements of these primitive times. Hass describes a 
number of tools fashioned in amphibolite, quartzite, jadeite, 
and granite, all well made. 1 Besides these we hear of shell 
fish-hooks, knives, borers, harpoons, and bone, horn, or deer- 
horn needles. 2 We give illustrations of two implements of 
peculiar form, unknown in Europe. The first (fig. 78) is of 
serpentine, eighteen inches long, and carefully polished. It 
was found under a mound near Big Har- 
peth River, Tennessee. Similar imple- 
ments have been found in the Cumber- 
land valley ; others from South Carolina 
are in the National Museum at Wash- 
ington ; their use is unknown. The 
second of which we give an illustration 
is of quartz, and comes from New Jersey 
{fig. 79). This form is frequently met 
with in America, especially in Ohio, 
Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and the State 
of New York. 3 Probably some of these 
implements were used in tilling the 
ground ; in Utah, for instance, hewn 
stones have been found of considerable 
size, with horn handles, supposed to 
have been agricultural implements. 
Schumacher (" Report, Peabody Muse- 
um," vol. II., p. 271) speaks of one of 
these implements measuring fourteen 
inches long by five wide. 

In describing the mounds, we have Fig. 79.— Flint instrument 

1 c 1 • 1-1 from New Tersey. 

spoken of numerous objects which - 3 

served either as ornaments of the deceased or as burial 
offerings. These ornaments greatly resemble each other 
in every region w r here artificial mounds have been erect- 

1 "Arch, of the Mississippi Valley," Rep. Am. Assoc., Chicago, 1S6S. 
2 Potter: "Arch. Remains in S. E. Missouri," St. Louis Acad, of Sciences, 
J880. Rau : " Smith. Contr.," vol. XXII., fig. 236, et seq. 

3 Rau : "Arch. Coll. of the U. S. Nat. Museum," Washington, 1S76, fig. 99. 




1/2 



PRE-HIS TOPIC A M ERICA . 



ed, and it would be impossible to distinguish those of 
New Jersey from those of Michigan, or those of Ohio from 
those of Florida. They consist of pearls, of shells, of cylin- 
ders made from the ribs of the manatee, the pierced teeth of 
the bear, of the wild cat, wolf and shark, the bones of little 
birds, the claws of birds of prey, and rings of stone or bone. 1 
Beneath a mound near St. Clair River, Michigan, a collar has 
been found made of bear teeth, alternating with beads of 
copper and bird-bones. All this recalls the ornaments stilL 
affected by the Indians of our own time. 

Beads may be counted by thousands ; they are of mother- 
of-pearl, of shell, stone, and wood, sometimes covered with 
a thin coating of metal. Numerous ornaments of wood 
covered with a coating of copper have been found, chiefly 
near Nashville ; and under a stone mound in Tennessee, ear- 
plugs of similar workmanship. Some of these articles are of 
copper, plated, by hammering, with native silver, gold, or 
meteoric iron. 

Mica, with its brilliant surface played an important part 
in matters of ornament. It was also commonly employed 
in large sheets supposed to have served as mirrors, or cut 
into ovals, spiral or diamond-shaped points, which served as 
ornaments. At Grave Creek, Virginia, more than one 
hundred sheets of mica were discovered, pierced with holes 
for hanging them up. Under a mound on the banks of the 
Little Miami, several pieces of mica, measuring as much as 
a foot in diameter, are mentioned as having been placed on 
the skeletons. 2 Chiefs and important personages wore shell 
ornaments. These were generally cut out of the flattest 
part of large shells. The shells most often used were Busy- 
con perversum, Strombus gigas, Fasciolaria gigantea, and 
Marginella conoidalis. These species are still found off the 
southeastern coast of the United States in great abundance. 
The ornaments were worn on the neck, and at death were 
placed in the grave. Two such ornaments were discovered 



J Rau : " Smith. Cont.," vol. XXII., figs. 213 and 214. 

a Dr. S. Scoville, Cincinnati Quarterly Journal, April, 1875. 



POTTERY, WEAPONS, AND ORNAMENTS. 



173 



in Tennessee on one of which (fig. 80) four birds' heads can 
be made out ; the edges of the second are elegantly carved. 
The St. Louis Museum owns many similar shells ; on one 
of them is engraved a huge spider. On others an attempt 
has been made to represent human figures, and even scenes 
from life, such as a battle in which the conqueror, sword in 
hand, has his foot on the breast of his adversary. In a pre- 
historic grave of Mackinac Island between Lakes Michigan 




Fig. So. — Shell ornament from Tennessee. 

and Huron, Robertson found two pendants made of sea 
shell. These pendants must therefore have been taken 
across the greater part of North America. Shells were also 
used to make necklaces, pins, and probably many other 
things (fig. 81). A very extensive intertribal traffic in such 
and other articles has doubtless existed in America from 
remote ages. As recently it has been found that articles 
from the shores of the Caspian may reach the mouth of the 
Mackenzie, on the Arctic Sea, in about three years, by barter, 
via Bering Strait, it is not wonderful that articles from Mex- 
ico or Florida should be found in Minnesota or New Eng- 
land. 



174 PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 

Among the ornaments affected by the Mound Builders 
were polished stones, often brought from long distances, and 
pierced with one or more holes for hanging them up by. 
Squier has remarked that with the stones from the mounds 
of Mississippi, the holes for suspension were always pierced 
at a distance of four fifths, of an inch apart. By a coincidence 
probably accidental, but certainly curious, the same measure 
is exactly reproduced on some stones found at Swanton. 1 Of 
these stones, some are of considerable weight, and sometimes 




Fig. 8i. — Pin made of shell from Ely Mound, Va. 




Fig. 82. — Sculptured stone found at Swanton, Vermont ; the base is flat and 
is pierced with two holes for suspension. Length 3^ inches. 

exceed two pounds ; some represent animals (fig. 82) chiefly 
birds, almost always roughly hewn. A fragment of white 
marble is mentioned in which the parts the artist wished 
especially to accentuate are colored red. It would indeed 
be difficult to enumerate all the varieties which have 
rewarded excavations. 

We must not omit to mention the metallic ornaments of 
the Mound Builders. At Connett's Mound more than five 



1 G. H. Perkins : " On an Ancient Burial Ground in Swanton, Vermont," 
Am. Assoc., Portland, 1873. 



POTTERY. WEAPONS, AND ORNAMENTS. 



1/5 



hundred copper beads (fig. 83) have been collected. These 
beads were intended to make bracelets or necklaces. 

At Circular Mound, near the Detroit River, some similar 
beads were threaded on a string made of bark. They had 
been shaped from a thin sheet of copper, first cut out and 
then rolled without any trace of soldering. 1 In other in- 
stances the beads were of oval form, and their manufacture 
must have presented serious difficulties. 

Besides the ornaments just mentioned we meet with celts. 
A " celt " is an implement of stone or bronze, used some- 
times as a weapon, but generally for industrial purposes, 
performing the office of a chisel or an adze. Celts vary 
considerably both in shape and size, but usually have the 



Fig. 83. — Copper beads from Connett's Mound, Ohio (natural size). 

outline of a plane-iron such as carpenters use, though of 
course much thicker when of stone, and with the cutting 
edge more or less arched. There are also scrapers, scissors, 
knives, lance- and arrow-points of different forms, all made 
by hammering pieces of native copper. To the early and 
late aborigines of America the malleable properties of cop- 
per were well known. At Swanton a copper hatchet was 
found originally provided with a wooden handle, of which 
fragments could still be distinguished ; in Wisconsin a 
lance-point and a knife that might be compared with 
our modern weapons (fig. 84); at Joliet, Illinois, a sharp 
blade, and at Fort Wayne a knife. On a skeleton discovered 
beneath a mound at Zollicoffer Hill, a copper ornament of, 

1 Andrews : " Expl. in S. E. Ohio." " Report, Peabody Museum," 1S77. 




176 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



quite peculiar form was found. 1 The cross surmounting it 
led people to suppose it to be of European origin ; but Dr. 

Jones mentions the same subject 
as an ornament on some engraved 
shells and copper objects, also 
found in Tennessee. 2 A skeleton 
taken from one of the Chillicothe 
mounds bore a cross upon its breast, 
and a figure with a cross engraved 
upon its shoulder was discovered be- 
neath a mound in the Cumberland 
valley. The cross occurs again on 
one of the bas-reliefs of Palenque, 
and on the monuments of Cuzco, in 
the very centre of the worship of the 
sun. When Grijalva landed in 1 5 1 8 
on the coast of Yucatan, his surprise 
was great to meet with the sign of 
his own faith in the temples of the 
natives. 3 Similar instances occur all 
over the continent of America and 
are mentioned, though it is impos- 
sible to attach any importance to 
them. The cross is of great antiquity 
in all countries. It is found on the 
most ancient monuments of Egypt, 
where it symbolizes eternal life. It 
is, moreover, one of the simplest 
forms of ornament '"and as such, and 
as suggested by many flowers and 
other natural objects, we should ex- 
pect to find in all parts of the world 
Fig. 84 — Copper weapons that it has been made use of by 





found in Wisconsin 



primitive man. 



1 Putnam : "Arch. Expl. in Tennessee." "Rep., Peabody Mus.," 1878, 
vol. II., p. 307. 

2 Heywood : "Expl. of the Aboriginal Remains of Tennessee." "Smith- 
sonian Contr.," 1876. 

3 Ilerrera : "Hist. Gen. de los hechos de los Castillafios en las Islas y 



POTTERY, WEAPONS, AND ORNAMENTS. 



177 



The pottery of Missouri and the discoveries of Putnam in 
the caves of Kentucky have already revealed the nature of 
the clothing worn by the Mound Builders, and mummies 
found in the caves of the western states enable us to judge 
of them still better. The bodies were wrapped in coarse 
cloth, over which was a kind of net with wide meshes, 
in which were stuck feathers of brilliant colors, the whole en- 
veloped in a third covering of skin. The ancient inhabitants 
of America manufactured different kinds 
of tissues. A few years ago the excava- 
tion of a mound near the Great Miami 
River, two miles north of Middletown, 
Ohio, yielded several fragments of half- 
burnt cloth mixed with charcoal, and hu- 
man bones also injured by fire. 1 This cloth 
which had been coarsely woven by hand 
was doubtless used to wrap the body in be- 
fore cremation, or, at least, the partial 
burning which preceded interment. It 
cannot reasonably be attributed to the 
present Indians, as the mound showed no 
traces of disturbance. 

Other instances confirm what we have 
just stated. In Iowa some copper axes 
have been recently discovered carefully 
wrapped in very well preserved cloth, 2 and 
in' January, 1876, excavations in a mound 
in Illinois 3 brought to light several turtles 
in beaten copper of remarkable workman- 
ship. Most of these turtles measure 
not more than 2 1-8 inches in length, fer Hill, Term, 
and the copper has been reduced by beating to a thick- 




Copper 



Fig. 8= 
ornament found in a 
stone grave at Zollicof- 



Tierra Firme del mar Oceano." Madrid, 1725-30, Dec. 2d, Book III., chap. 
I. The hrst edition was published in 1605. 

Foster: "Description of samples of ancient cloth from the mounds of 
Ohio." "Rep., Am. Assoc.," Albany, 1851. 

2 Short : " The North Americans of Antiquity," p. 37. 

3 Bulletin of 'the Buffalo Society of Natural History, March, 1877. 



i ;8 



P RE-HI S TORI C A ME RICA . 



ness of 1-64 of an inch. These jewels, for such they 
must be called, evidently of great value, were enveloped suc- 
cessively in a vegetable tissue, some stuff of brown color 
made of the hair either of the rabbit or some other animal, 1 
and lastly in a covering made out of the intestines of some 
animal. In the same mound were found teeth of a deer 
perforated for suspension and covered with very thin plates 
of copper. These teeth were wrapped like the turtles we 
have just described. 

The Ohio mounds, which have afforded results so fruitful 
for science, have also yielded a very well-preserved piece 
of skin about eight or ten inches long, ornamented with nu- 
merous oval copper beads. This was a fragment of a 
garment which had belonged to a Mound Builder. 2 

The copper which the Mound Builders used so frequently 
came from the shores of Lake Superior. 3 The works of 
ancient miners are scattered over a region 150 miles long 
and from four to seven miles wide, now called the Trap-zone. 
Keweenaw Point juts out like a buttress into the lake for a 
distance of seventy miles, and the mineral deposits which 
abound there have been worked in remote ages, though all 
traces had been obliterated, and all memory of the old 
miners lost, until, in 1848, the work of a mining company 
laid them bare. The depth of the excavations, which were 
always open to the sky, varied from twenty to thirty feet, 
the latter forming the extreme limit to which these inexperi- 
enced workmen dared to penetrate, and the copper was 
found in masses varying from a few ounces to thousands of 
pounds. In one mine, which had been choked up in the 

1 Examination with the microscope has not succeeded in satisfactorily de- 
termining the nature of this hair. It is known, however, that the Nahuas manu- 
factured a tissue as fine as silk out of rabbit's hair. 

2 School-house Mound, Ohio. Andrews : " Report, Peabody Museum," vol. 
II., p. 65. 

3 C. Jackson : " Geological Report to the U. S. Government," 1849. Fos- 
ter and Whitney: " Report on the Geology of the Lake Superior Region," part 
I, 1850. Ch. Whittlesey : "Ancient Mining on the Shores of Lake Superior" ; 
Am. Assoc., Montreal, Canada, 1857. Swineford : "Review of the Mineral 
Resources of Lake Superior," 1876. 



POTTERY, WEAPONS, AND ORNAMENTS. 



179 



course of years with earth and vegetable refuse, the remains 
,of several generations of trees, was found, at about eighteen 
feet from the surface, a block of metal measuring two feet 
long by three wide and two thick, and weighing nearly six 
tons. This mass had been placed on rollers from six to 
eight inches in diameter, the edges of which still bore the 
marks of a sharp instrument. The miners had rolled the 
mass up about five feet, and then they had abandoned an 
undertaking beyond their strength or the means at their dis- 
posal. Their mining processes were very simple ; the work- 
men lighted great fires in the mine, and when the rock had 
become friable they broke it with powerful blows of a stone 
hammer or mallet. Several of the mallets used have been 
found, the heaviest weighing as much as thirty-six pounds ; 
also a great number of small serpentine or porphyry ham- 
mers. Knapp, who was the first to direct these excavations, 
states that he took out from these mines ten cart-loads of 
stone implements of all kinds. In an unusually deep exca- 
vation, a quite primitive ladder was found, consisting of the 
trunk of a young tree, with the branches cut at unequal 
distances to serve as rungs. In other places shovels, levers, 
and dippers of cedar wood were discovered, preserved 
from destruction by the water in which they were soaked. 
Everywhere copper implements were found side by side with 
stone, mostly bearing marks of long service. One mallet 
weighed more than twenty pounds. Like all the other cop- 
per objects it had been made by hammering unheated. 

Various analyses of the copper of Lake Superior have 
proved its identity with that collected from the mounds. 
Both yield the same proportion of silver, and we know that 
the latter metal is always present with copper in varying 
quantities. 

The deposits of Isle Royal, Lake Superior, were even 
richer than those of Keweenaw Point. 1 They extended for a 
distance of forty miles, and the ground was riddled with 
ancient excavations dug out to get at the ore. It has been 



1 H. Gillman : " Ancient Works of Isle Royal." " Smith. Cont.," 1873. 



i8o 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



estimated that the vegetation rising from the old mining 
works of the Great Lakes represent an approximate duration 
of several centuries. But we have already referred to the 
uncertain character of what may be called vegetable evi- 
dence. 

Traces of native mining operations have been found in sev- 
eral other parts of North America, in Arkansas, Missouri, and 
on the slopes of the Ozark Mountains, for instance. 1 There 
were also copper mines in Mexico, 2 but there is nothing to 
show when they were worked. Captain Peck noticed near 
the Ontonagon River, in northern Michigan, at a depth of 
twenty-five feet, some sledges and other tools in contact with 
a vein of copper. 3 A little above them lay the fallen trunk 
of an old cedar ; the roots of a fir in full vigor surrounded 
the cedar. This fir was estimated to be at least a hundred 
years old, and to that time must be added the age of the 
cedar it had replaced, with the yet longer period necessary 
to the filling up of the abandoned cutting by the slow accu- 
mulations of successive winters, which supplied the trees 
with the vegetable earth necessary to their growth. 

Copper seems to have been the only metal in common 
use amongst the Mound Builders. Few well authenticated 
discoveries of gold are known ; silver was rare, and so far 
has been found chiefly under some mounds of Mound City, 
in very thin leaves covering shells or copper ornaments, and 
this plating is so well done that the work of the artificer 
can only be made out with difficulty/ This silver must have 
come from Lake Superior, where it is found associated with 
native copper in a metallic state. 

It has been generally supposed that iron was unknown,* 
and in numerous excavations made at many different points 
and in many different regions, not a scrap of it has been 
found. We have previously mentioned the recent and au- 
thentic discovery of meteoric iron by Putnam and Metz in 

1 Schoolcraft : " Archives of Aboriginal Knowledge," vol. I., p. 101. 

2 F. von Hellwald : " Congres des Americanistes," Luxembourg, 1 877. 

3 Lubbock : " Prehistoric Times," p. 289. 

4 Iron ore and galena occur, but no iron or lead, Bancroft, vol. IV., p. 778. 



POTTERY, WEAPONS, AND ORNAMENTS. l8l 

the Little Miami mounds, which show that it was considered 
very valuable, vN since copper ornaments were plated with it 
as others were with gold or silver. 2 Previous statements 
with regard to the discovery of iron in the mounds are, with- 
out exception, unsatisfactory. 

The Mound Builders are supposed to have been quite ig- 
norant of any process of fusing metals, 1 and their weapons, 
or implements of copper, were, as we have more than once 
remarked, shaped by hammering. A recent discovery, 
however, is claimed to modify this opinion and to prove that 
in one place at least the Mound Builders understood the art 
of smelting metals. Some recent excavations in Wisconsin 
have yielded not only implements of copper, but the very 
moulds in which they are supposed to have been cast. It is 
desirable that other facts should confirm an assertion upset- 
ting the hitherto generally received opinion. 2 It has been 
held by some and with much probability, that the 
moulds were used in the process of shaping cold copper, a 
piece oi approximately similar form having been put into 
the mould and hammered until it took the shape of the 
cavity. The experiment was successfully tried by Dr. Hoy 
with one of the stone moulds. 

Traces of cultivation attributed to the Mound Builders are 
numerous in the western states, especially in Michigan and 
Indiana. 3 These are parallel embankments, which often 
cover a considerable area, several acres for instance, to which 
have been given the significant name of Garden-beds. We 
meet with similar embankments in Missouri and in all the 

1 There is no evidence that metal was ever obtained from ore by smelting. 
The Mound Builders were ignorant of the arts of casting, welding, and. alloy- 
ing. Bancroft, vol. IV., p. 778. 

2 The above was written when I heard of a letter from Putnam, of Nov. 17, 
1881, called " Were ancient implements hammered or motilded into shape?" 
The learned professor concludes with me that there is so far no serious proof of the 
use of moulding. " Besides beating," adds Putnam, ' ' these men employed one 
other process ; the metal was rolled between two flat stones, by which means 
the required form was obtained." 

8 Schoolcraft : " Ancient Garden-Beds in Grand River Valley" (Michigan), 
vol. I., p. 50, and pi. VI. Conant, p. 65. 



182 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



districts west of the Mississippi ; they extend into the valleys 
of the Ozark Mountains, from Pulaski county to the Gulf 
of Mexico on the south, to the banks of the Colorado and to 
Texas on the west, and to Iowa on the north. Their 
diameter varies from ten to sixty feet, and their height from 
two to three feet. Numerous and detailed excavations have 
yielded no relic, no bone, no fragment of pottery, no heap of 
cinders or of coal that could witness to the residence 
or the burial of man. They cannot therefore be compared 
either with the kitchen middens or the sepulchral mounds. 

Professor Forshey attests their presence in Louisiana, where 
they are of considerably larger dimensions, their diameter 
varying from thirty to one hundred and forty feet. It should 
be added that the diameter of one hundred and forty feet is 
an isolated case. Their greatest height is five feet, which 
diminishes to a few inches in the vast marshes stretching away 
from the shores of the Gulf of Mexico. At certain points these 
embankments touch each other, and between Galveston and 
Houston, between the Red River and Wichita, they can be 
counted by thousands. According to Forshey, who de- 
scribed them to the New Orleans Academy of Sciences, 
these embankments cannot have served as the founda- 
tions of the homes of men. He remarked that none of the 
known burrowing animals execute such works, whilst hurri- 
canes could not have accumulated materials with such regu- 
larity. He added that in his opinion it was impossible to 
say any thing definite with regard to their origin, which 
seemed to him inexplicable. Other archaeologists are more 
positive ; they consider that these embankments could have 
been used for nothing but cultivation, and that they were in- 
tended to counteract the humidity of the soil, still the 
greatest obstacle with which the tillers of the rich plains of 
the lower Mississippi valley have to contend. 

According to certain authorities the Mound Builders cul- 
tivated maize, frijoles or black kidney beans, introduced by 
the Spaniards into Europe, and even the vine. A recent ex- 
plorer, Amasa Potter, in describing the excavations of a 



POTTERY, WEAPONS, AND ORNAMENTS. 



183 



mound in Utah, tells of having found a handful of corn, 
a few grains of which carefully collected and planted yielded 
the following year an ear of exceptional length, containing a 
number of grains of a shape quite distinct from that of 
any cereal of to-day ; but the whole account of this dis- 
covery is so extraordinary that it is impossible to accept it. 

To sum up : the vast region between the Mississippi on 
the west and the Alleghanies on the east and between 
the Ohio on the north and the Gulf of Mexico on the south, 
was occupied for centuries, the exact number of which it 
is impossible to estimate in the present state of our knowledge, 
by man. Judging from the number of structures left to bear 
witness, this population was numerous ; tolerably homo- 
geneous, for everywhere we recognize similar funeral rites, 
and much the same arts and industries ; sedentary, for 
nomads would not have erected such temples or constructed 
such intrenchments ; pastoral and agricultural, for the chase 
could not have supplied all their needs ; subject to chiefs, for 
a despotic authority must have been indispensable to the 
erection of the works left behind them ; and lastly they must 
have been traders, for beneath the same mounds we find the 
copper of Lake Superior, the mica of the Alleghanies, the 
obsidian of Mexico, and the pearls and shells of the Gulf. All 
testify to the fact that the men, whose traces we are seeking, 
had long since risen from the barbarism of savagery, and that 
they had attained to a state of comparative culture. It 
is certain that, as with all the savage races whose evolution 
history enables us to follow, this culture could only have 
been acquired slowly and by degrees. 

What then, we must now ask, were the men, whose works 
so justly excite our astonishment? Did the Mound Builders 
disappear ? Were they aboriginal, or were their architecture, 
their industrial art, and their agriculture of foreign origin? 
If they migrated from neighboring regions, or from distant 
continents, what were those regions and what those con- 
tinents? By what route did they travel, and if they disap- 
peared how was it that all recollection of their disappearance 



PKE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



was effaced from the memory of their conquerors or their 
successors? It is impossible to disguise either the bearing 
of these questions on the development of the American 
races ; or the fact that at present we can but partially solve 
them. The conditions of the problem and the opinions 
which have been successively enounced may be briefly 
stated. 

Those who have made this subject their special study have 
been divided into two parties, and religious prejudice has 
even been invoked to aggravate the difficulties already in 
themselves so great. To the most recent and cautious investi- 
gators the Indians at the time of the conquest represent 
in a general way the so called Mound Builders, while others, 
on the contrary, assert that the builders of the great mounds 
have completely disappeared, and these persons absolutely 
refuse to admit the possibility of the native races of North 
America being their descendants. We must examine in 
turn the arguments and objections which are not wanting for 
or against any of the theories put forth. 

One thing is certain : The analogy between the mounds 
is such that they cannot but be the work of a people in 
about the same stage of culture. " They are all built by one 
people," observes Conant, on p. 39 of his " Footprints of 
Vanished Races," and it is not less certain that centuries 
may have been required for their erection. The men who 
worked the mines of Lake Superior, who erected such mounds 
as those of Newark, Portsmouth, Cincinnati, Chillicothe, and 
Circleville, and such fortifications as those of Ohio, must long 
have dwelt in these regions, though it is impossible to fix the 
limits of their occupation. The question of the time of their 
residence is so intimately connected with that of their origin^ 
that it is impossible to separate them. 

One preliminary remark must be made : in the caves and 
beneath the tumuli of Europe have been found numerous 
well-preserved human bones, often dating from the most re- 
mote antiquity, while this is less commonly the case in 
America. These excavations have often yielded, as the last 



POTTERY, WEAPONS, AND ORNAMENTS. 1 85 

vestiges of the human body, but a few little heaps of white 
dust ; though hundreds of skeletons have been taken out, but 
a small proportion of them have been treated with the care 
necessary to their preservation. 

It has also been noticed that mounds are rarely met with 
in the lower levels 1 of the districts watered by the Ohio or 
its tributaries. These structures nearly all rise from terraces 
formed by ancient alluvial deposits, and some have retained 
to this day traces of great inundations which altered the 
valleys. It is likely that their builders chose their sites so 
as to avoid the great floods, the disastrous effects of which 
they must have annually experienced at the outset. Recent 
discoveries enable us to add that some of the mounds rise 
from the most recent alluvial deposits. This fact would 
prove that the erection of mounds went on for centuries. 

The giants of the forest have covered many of the arti- 
ficial earthworks, and generations of tree in their turn suc- 
ceeded the residence of man. Such changes surely needed 
a long period of time. " The process by which nature re- 
stores the forest to its original state, after being once 
cleared, is extremely slow," says General Harrison 2 in a 
speech already quoted. " The rich lands of the West are, 
indeed, soon covered again, but the character of the growth 
is entirely different, and continues so for a long period. In 
several places upon the Ohio, and upon the farm which I 
occupy, clearings were made in the first settlement of the 
country, and consequently abandoned and suffered to grow 
up. Some of these new forests are now sure of fifty years' 
growth, but they have made so little progress toward attain- 
ing the appearance of the immediately contiguous forest as 
to induce any man of reflection to determine that at least 
ten times fifty years must elapse before their complete 

1 The difference of level between the high and low water is thirty-five feet for 
the Upper Mississippi, from thirty to thirty-five for the Missouri, and forty-two 
for the Ohio. 

a " Trans. Hist. Soc. of Ohio," vol. L, p. 263. See also "Arch. Americana," 
vol. I., p. 306 ; and Squier and Davis' " Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi 
Valley," 1848, p. 306. 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



assimilation can be effected. We find in the ancient works 
all that variety of trees which give such unrivalled beauty 
to our forests, in natural proportions. The first growth of 
the same kind of land, once cleared and then abandoned to 
nature, on the contrary, is nearly homogeneous, often stinted 
to one or two, at most three, kinds of timber. If the ground 
has been cultivated, the yellow locust will thickly spring 
up ; if not cultivated, the black and white walnut will be the 
prevailing growth. * * * Of what immense ages, then, 
must be the works so often referred to, covered as they are 
by at least the second growth after the primitive forest 
state was regained ? " 

Barrandt 1 describes a regular town, a Mound City he 
calls it, on the Yellowstone River, which town had perfectly 
straight avenues and mounds at equal distances. Another 
town rather like this, on the Moreau River, contains nearly 
two hundred mounds, and a third rises on the banks of the 
Great Cheyenne, Nebraska. In Missouri and Arkansas we 
also see a considerable number of mounds of elliptical form, 
measuring from five to seven yards long, and rising from 
about one foot to one and a half feet above the ground. 
All are symmetrically arranged, with passages crossing each 
other at right angles, as do our streets. 2 Excavations have 
yielded nothing but charcoal or fragments of coarse pottery, 
from which no useful inferences could be drawn. In the 
neighborhood numerous jasper and agate arrow-points have 
been picked up, and syenite and porphyry axes. 3 

It has been claimed by those who would see in the build- 
ers of the mounds a unique, civilized, and vanished race, 
that the symmetry above described is foreign to the charac- 
ter of the existing Indians, that the Indian races did not 
build mounds, that they did not throw up embankments, 
that their customs and industries have never presented so 
striking a similarity as the remains of the mounds seem to 

1 " Smithsonian Report," 1870. 

2 J. Dille : " Smithsonian Report," 1866. 

3 " Narrative of a Journey across the Cordillera of the Andes." London, 1825. 



POTTERY, WEAPONS, AND ORNAMENTS. 1 87 



indicate for their builders, that the Indians could not or 
would not dig canals, hammer copper into utensils, or make 
such pottery as that found in the mounds. It is also 
said that the Indians have no traditions in regard to the 
mounds, or ascribe them to a foreign race or to some mythi- 
cal people, and have no reverence for them such as would be 
expected if the works were the tombs of their ancestors. 

Of these arguments it may be said that there is hardly 
one of them which has not already been refuted by scientific 
researches of recent days, and most of them would never 
have been offered if the persons who advanced them had 
had our present knowledge of the American races, the 
mounds, and the methods of scientific archaeology. This is 
no reproach to the early investigators. Archaeology as a 
science is young, and yet those who depend upon many of 
the early writers for their general principles are in the posi- 
tion of the blind led by the blind. 

It should, however, be distinctly understood that the 
reference to " Indians " in connection with the mounds, is a 
strictly general term. The richest, most cultured, and most 
sedentary of the Indian tribes existing when the white race 
poured into America like a resistless flood, have been de- 
stroyed ; of many tribes none remain. Of others only a 
most feeble remnant exists or lately existed in a region to 
which they have been exiled from the lands of their fathers. 
Those who constitute the greater portion of our Indian 
population to-day are those who were nomads, wanderers, 
the Bedouins of America, the idle wanderers who were not 
tied to the soil by their progress in culture, and who proba- 
bly never troubled themselves about mounds as long as they 
could shift their wigwams from one good hunting ground to 
another. It is of these that one thinks as Indians when the 
contrast between Mound Builder and Indian is mooted. 
Again, even among those who were not of the nomadic 
category there is no doubt that their facility in many ab- 
original arts wilted before the sun of civilization, while the 
methods and tools of the white man, like foreign weeds, 



1 88 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



sprang up in the vacant place. Why spend hours of work 
making fragile, if artistic, pots when an otter skin would 
purchase three good kettles outlasting a wilderness of pots ? 
Why wearily weave the macerated fibres of wild herbage to 
a coarse, unsightly fabric when a basket of wild berries 
would sell to the white man for a fathom of bright calico? 
The Indian, whatever romance may be reflected upon him 
by the novelist in trying to hold the mirror up to nature, is, 
in business matters, as he understands them, severely practi- 
cal. The white man's tools, fabrics, weapons, kettles are 
the better ones, and the Indian adopts them. After three 
centuries of this sort of thing why should the disappearance 
of many historically recorded aboriginal methods astonish us. 

It is also to be remembered that America holds many 
peoples of different culture and habits. We know that most 
of them are ultimately related though put in various linguis- 
tic families. Were their heaps of refuse and the relics of 
their villages their only record, who would claim kindred 
between the Pueblos of the South and the fishing Indians of 
Canada ? the Northern Tinneh and the Apache, or many 
other contemporaries ? These reservations made, the prob- 
lem of the mounds becomes less misty. 

Although it is true that we meet with no structures amongst 
the Indians of the extreme north which at all recall those of 
the Mound Builders, and although the laziness of the ab- 
origines of the present time is so indomitable that they have 
often not even dreamed of turning the mounds to account for 
the burial of their own dead, facts of a different kind maybe 
quoted with regard to other regions. The Kickapoos living 
in southern Illinois, and the Shawnees, who dwelt near 
Nashville, buried their dead, until quite recent times, in 
stone graves. This fact, we must add, has been called in 
question, especially by Carr in his " Observations on the 
Crania from the Stone Graves of Tennessee," 1 and, if it be 
true, there is nothing to prove that the Indians did not use 
sepulchral chambers dating from before their arrival in the 
locality. 

1 " Report, Peabody Museum," vol. II., pp. 361, etc. 



POTTERY, 



WEAPONS, AND ORNAMENTS. 



189 



The testimony of the Spanish historians is more impor- 
tant. Garcilasso de la Vega 1 tells of the Indian mode of 
founding a town at the time of the conquest. According to 
him the Indians collected large quantities of earth with which 
they formed a platform many feet in height, large enough 
to hold from ten to twelve houses, or if necessary fifteen to 
twenty. There dwelt the chief, his family and his chief 
attendants. At the foot of the mound a square was marked 
out, of the size the town was to be ; the principal chiefs took 
up their residences in it, and the common people gathered 
about them. Further on, Garcilasso 2 described the town of 
Guachoule near the source of the Coosa, not far from the 
country of the Achalaques, part of the Cherokee tribe, in 
which the house of the chief was erected on an eminence 
terminating in a platform, on which six men could stand up- 
right. 

The confirmatory testimony of early explorers shows that 
the valley of the Mississippi, as well as the districts now 
forming the states of Ohio, Florida, and Georgia, was inhab- 
ited by warlike nations, who tilled the ground, lived in forti- 
fied towns, erected their temples on eminences, often arti- 
ficial, and worshipped the sun. These were the men who 
repulsed Narvaez when he endeavored to conquer Florida in 
1528. It is but fair to remark that Narvaez' army consisted 
of but 400 foot soldiers and twenty cavalry, though provided 
with civilized weapons. It was against them that Hernan- 
dez de Soto fought for four years, giving them battle with 
great slaughter in Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Mississippi, 
Alabama, and Arkansas. Everywhere he found a numerous 
population. The towns were surrounded with walls of earth, 
and towers strengthened the broad trenches which completed 
the defences. At Pascha, west of the Mississippi, for 
instance, the Spaniards found a fortified town surrounded 

1 " Hist, de la Conquete de la Floride, ou Relation de ce qui s' est passe 
au voyage de Ferdinand de Soto pour la Conquete de ce pays." La Haye, 1735, 
vol. I., p. 136. 

2 Vol I., p. 294. See also A. J. Pickett, " History of Alabama," Charleston, 
1857, vol. I., p. 8. 



190 



PRE-H1ST0RIC AMERICA. 



by a trench sufficiently wide for two canoes to float in it 
abreast. This trench was nine miles long and communicated 
with the Mississippi. 

Squier in his turn tells of finding among the Creeks, 
Natchez, and other tribes of the south, traces of structures 
which, if they do not exactly resemble the regular enclos- 
ures of the west, seem at least to have some analogy with 
them, and the description we borrow from him of the Chunk 
Yards 1 is certainly a fresh proof in favor of the opinion he 
advances. 

" The Chunk Yards 2 are rectangular areas, generally occu- 
pying the centre of the town, enclosed and having an 
entrance at each end. The public square and rotunda, or 
great winter council-house, stand at the two opposite corners 
of them. They are generally very extensive, especially in 
older towns. Some of them are 600 to 900 feet in length 
and of proportionate breadth. The area is levelled, and sunk 
two, or sometimes three feet below the banks or terraces 
surrounding them, which are occasionally two in number, 
one behind and above the other, and composed of earth 
taken from the area at the time of its formation. These 
banks or terraces served the purpose of seats for spectators. 
In the centre of the yard or area there is a low circular 
mound or eminence, in the middle of which stands the 
' Chunk Pole,' which is a high obelisk or four-square pillar, 
tapering upward to an obtuse point. This is of wood, the 

1 " Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley," p. 121. 

2 Their name is derived from an Indian game. Catlin describes it among 
the Mandans and gives it the name of Tchungkee ("Illustrations of the 
Manners, Customs, and Conditions of the North American Indians," London, 
1866, vol I., p. 132). Adair had already described the Chung kee among the 
Cherokees (" Hist, of the Am. Indians," London, 1775, p. 401). Jones met 
with the same game among the Indians of the South (" Antiquities of the 
Southern Indians"), and Bartram among those of Carolina. Carr gives an 
illustration of a carefully polished sandstone of elliptical form measuring about 
four inches at its widest part and nearly two and three fourths thick. This 
stone was found under Ely Mound, Virginia, and similar ones have been met 
with in various places. They are supposed to have been used in the favorite 
game of the Indians. 



POTTERY, WEAPONS, AND ORNAMENTS. 



l 9 V 



heart or inward resinous part of a sound pine-tree, which is, 
very durable. It is generally from thirty to forty feet in 
length, and to the top is fastened some object which serves 
as a mark to shoot at, with arrows or the rifle, at certain 
appointed times. Near each corner of one end of the yard 
stands erect a smaller pole or pillar, about twelve feet high, 
called the ' Slave Post,' for the reason that to them are 
bound the captives condemned to be burned. These posts 
are usually decorated with the scalps of slain enemies, sus- 
pended by strings from the top. They are often crowned 
with the white dry skull of an enemy." * * * * * Fur- 
ther on the same author describes " a circular eminence, at 
one end of the yard, commonly nine or ten feet higher than 
the ground round about. Upon this mound stands the 
great rotunda, hot-house, or winter council-house, of the 
present Creeks. It was probably designed and used by the 
ancients who constructed it for the same purpose. * * * 
A square terrace or eminence, about the same height with 
the circular one just described, occupies a position at the 
other end of the yard. Upon this stands the Public Square." 1 
Recent discoveries confirm this account. 2 Under a coni- 
cal mound measuring 19 feet high by 300 feet in circum- 
ference at the base, in Lee county, Virginia, were found a 
number of posts of cedar wood, arranged at regular intervals 
so as to form a circle, with a much higher one in the centre 
doubtless intended to hold up the roof or covering. This 
was the council-chamber, the assembly-room, of the tribe, 
greatly resembling that of which Bartram, quoted above, 
writing in the last century, gives a description. "The 
council or town house," he says, speaking of that of the 
Cherokees, " is a large rotunda, capable of accommodating 

1 These extracts, which are taken from Squier and Davis' "Ancient Monu- 
ments of the Mississippi Valley," pp. 121-123, are in reality quotations by these 
authors, taken with others from a MS. by W. Bartram, author of <4 Travels in 
North and South Carolina." " The Ancient Monuments of the Mississipp 1 
Valley" will be found in vol. I. of the " Smithsonian Contributions to Know- 
ledge," published by the Smithsonian Institution, at Washington, in 1848. 

2 " Report of Peabody Museum," vol. II. p. 75, etc. 



192 



PRE- HI S TORIC A ME RICA . 



several hundred people ; it stands on the top of an ancient 
artificial mount of about twenty feet perpendicular, and the 
rotunda on the top of it being about thirty feet more gives 
the whole fabric an elevation of about fifty feet from the 
common surface of the ground ; but it may be proper to ob- 
serve that this mount, on which the rotunda stands, is of a 
much more ancient date than the building, and perhaps was 
raised for another purpose. The Cherokees themselves are as 
ignorant as we are as to by what people or for what purpose 
these artificial hills were raised ; they have various stories 
concerning them." 

The Indians of the South then not only used the ancient 
mounds for the houses of their chiefs, or for their council- 
chambers, but they also erected similar mounds in their own 
chunk yards. These facts greatly modified Squier's first 
impressions, and led him, as he himself tells us, to a conclu- 
sion he little expected when he began his researches. In his 
last studies he decided that the earthworks in the western 
portion of the state of New York were erected by the 
Iroquois, and that their erection only preceded their discov- 
ery by a short time. He adds, it is true, that in the 16th 
century there was not a single Indian tribe between the At- 
lantic and the Pacific, except the half-civilized people of the 
South, who had sufficient means of subsistence to be able 
to give up time to unproductive labor ; nor was there one 
tribe in such a social condition as would admit of the com- 
pulsory erection by the people of the structures under no- 
tice. Subsequent researches have removed many of the 
supposed difficulties, and are well summarized by Lucien 
Carr in the paper from which we have already quoted. 

Southall dwells on the facts which seem to him to prove, 
not only an Indian origin for the mounds, but also their re- 
cent construction. 1 His work describes the Iroquois gov- 
ernment which included five nations. These were the 
Mohawks, also called in some French narratives the Agniers, 
the Oneidas, the Onondagas, theCayugas, and the Senecas, or 



J " Recent Origin of Man," ch. xxxvi., p. 530 et seq. 



POTTERY, WEAPONS, AND ORNAMENTS. 



!93 



Tsonontouas. According to the Jesuit fathers these nations 
numbered in 1665, 2340 warriors or altogether 11,700 souls, 
according to the generally accepted method of estimating 
such populations. 

They devoted themselves to agriculture, and were able 
for nearly two centuries to maintain their independence 
against the Dutch and French. Their territory stretched 
from the St. Lawrence to Tennessee and Ohio ; they were 
not ignorant of navigation, and early travellers report having 
seen their canoes as far southeast as Chesapeake Bay. Since 
then they have given up their nomad habits and we have 
some very exact descriptions of their villages and dwellings. 1 

It was the same in many other parts of the country. 
Strachey, travelling in Virginia at the beginning of the 
17th century, 2 relates that he found the Indians liv- 
ing in houses made of wood, cultivating maize and tobacco, 
and harvesting peas, kidney-beans, and fruit. The Mandans, 
dwelling on the upper Missouri, not far from the mouth of 
the Yellowstone River, dug out earth for a depth of about 
two feet, and built their huts in the hollows thus obtained. 
These huts, which were of circular form, made of solid ma- 
terials and roofed in with turf, were from about thirty to 
forty feet in diameter. Several families lived together; the 
beds, which were ranged round the circular walls, had cur- 
tains of dressed deer-skin. The Iroquois, Natchez, Dela- 
wares, and Indians of Florida and Louisiana made vases, the 
ornamentation and delicacy of which were not in any way 
inferior to the pottery of the Mound Builders, and the curi- 
ous pipes, of which we have spoken, are met with among the 
Indians of the present day. 

Lastly, two centuries ago, when French missionaries first 
visited the districts bordering on Lake Superior, the Chip- 
pewas used copper weapons and tools. These facts, with 
many others which might be quoted, would appear to justify 

1 See especially the account by Greenhalgh who visited several Seneca villages 
in 1677, and Morgan's " League of the Iroquois." 

2 " Historie of Travaile into Virginia Britannia " (written in 1618). 



194 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



a belief that the Indians once possessed a civilization supe- 
rior to the condition to which their descendants have been 
reduced by defeat, invasion, indulgence in too much alcohol, 
and other causes. 

We have given a summary of the different opinions held, 
and have stated the conclusions to which they lead most 
modern anthropologists. Some discussion of the physical 
characters of these races may be useful, The Indians of 
America have been held to form a distinct variety of the 
human race. Their skin is swarthy, varying from the pale 
olive to a warm brown, often with a bright color on the 
cheeks. The stories of their copper-colored complexion are, 
at least in North America, due to the ridiculous miscon- 
ception of the early voyagers who took no account of the 
reddish paint with which they were smeared. Like the 
whites, their complexion is darkened or burned by the sun, 
sometimes to a considerable degree, but nobody ever saw 
a naturally copper-colored American Indian ; their hair is 
black and wiry and almost invariably straight ; their eyes are 
black or very dark-brown ; their lips are thick or thin, ac- 
cording to the tribe or individual ; their forehead is com- 
paratively low ; their face is generally long with high cheek- 
bones ; their hands and feet are small and often delicately 
made. These characteristic traits have rarely been known 
to vary during the three centuries in which they have been 
in contact with the whites, but marked differences occur be- 
tween the various tribes as to physiognomy, physique, tem- 
perament, personal attractiveness, and tint of complexion. 
This has been observed by all students of the Indians who 
have been fortunate enough to have wide experience among 
them. Much stress has been placed on supposed funda- 
mental differences between the bones of the Mound Builders 
and those of other American races. These differences were 
more apparent while the material was scanty, and tend to 
disappear as we come to know more of the Indians of vari- 
ous parts of America, and to have larger mound material for 
comparison. It has been said that the Mound Builders are 



POTTERY, WEAPONS, AND ORNAMENTS. 1 95 



characterized by a general conformation which places them 
apart amongst human races, and differentiates them espe- 
cially from the Indians of North America. For myself, 
however, I do not attach as much importance as do some 
eminent anthropologists to differences between bones, 
especially the bones of skulls. Too often we find beneath 
the same mound, dating from contemporaneous burials, 
amidst similar stone implements and pieces of pottery, 
brachycephalic and dolichocephalic skulls, skulls of the 
Caucasian, and skulls of almost negroid type. All varieties, 
from extreme long heads to rounded or nearly square heads 
have been found among undoubted Eskimo crania. 1 The 
external conformation of the heads can only be guessed at, 
a!nd therefore any conclusion might turn out to be pre- 
mature. 

Moreover, however true these assertions may be, there are, 
as we have previously intimated, Indians and Indians. The 
Indians of the north should not be confounded with those 
met with by the Conquistadores in the south, and who were 
certainly in a much more advanced state of culture. It may 
be supposed that the wild tribes from the north and the 
northwest first drove the mound-building people from 
Illinois and Indiana ; that those of Ohio, protected by a 
solid line of fortified camps or villages, offered a more 
efficacious resistance, but that they, in their turn, were 
driven beyond the Mississippi ; that the struggle went on in 
Kentucky and Tennessee, until the day when the remnants 
of this ancient people were driven back to the districts 
bordering on the Gulf, where the vanquished were gradually 
merged with the conquerors, and that thus united they 
contended bravely and often with success against a foreign 
yoke. 2 

Perhaps too it may be possible to meet with traces of 

1 We have mentioned numerous facts leading to a similar conclusion in Eu- 
rope. See, also, "Les premiers hommes et les temps pre-historiques," vol. 
I., ch. iii., and vol. II., ch. xii. 

2 Force: A quelle race appartenaient les Mound Builders ("Cong. des. 
Americanistes," Luxembourg, vol. I., p. 121.) 



196 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



people akin to the Mound Builders amongst the Aztecs, 
whose stone teocallis resemble the conical mounds in form, 
and amongst the Mayas, 1 of whose remarkable monuments 
we shall presently speak, and who also had to contend with 
formidable enemies. 2 

There can be no doubt whatever that tribes who were 
builders of mounds lived in Central America for centuries, 
but we have no chronological scale by which we can estimate 
the duration of their residence there, still less determine 
a definite emigration to or arrival in the valleys of the. 
Mississippi or of the Missouri. The trees growing from the 
mounds of Ohio are rarely more than one or two hundred 
years old ; while in the valleys of Florida and on the shores 
of the Gulf of Mexico they are not even so old as that. One 
conclusion may be drawn : that the mounds had been 
abandoned when they became overgrown with trees. But 
were these trees the successors of others, and can we say how 
many generations have disappeared since the erection of the 
mounds, or whether the latter were generally contempo- 
raneous ? We were met by a similar problem in dealing 
with the shell heaps and we can only give a similar an- 
swer. 

From the mounds themselves we can learn nothing. A 
lapse of thirty centuries or of five would account equally 
well for the development of the civilization they represent. 
Stronck ascribes the erection of some of the mounds to the 
earliest days of our own era, and thinks that some of them 
must have been abandoned between the sixth and twelfth 

1 Robertson speaks of having disinterred a considerable number of Mound 
Builders' skulls, and says that they have in every case been of a type somewhat 
resembling that of the natives of Yucatan (" Congres des Americanistes," Luxem- 
bourg, 1877, vol. I., p. 43.) 

2 The examinations of the organic and monumental remains, and of the works 
of art of the aborigines of Tennessee, by Dr. Jones, in his opinion establish 
the fact that they were not the relics of the nomadic and hunting tribes of 
Indians such as many known to exist at the time of the first explorations by the 
white race ; but on the contrary that they are the remains of a people more 
closely related to but not identical with the aborigines of Mexico and Central 
America, " Smithsonian Contr.," vol. XXII., p. 88. 



POTTERY, WEAPONS, AND ORNAMENTS. 



I 9 7 



centuries. 1 The margin, it is evident, is wide. Force, 2 in fix- 
ing on the seventh century as the most flourishing period of 
these people, and Hellwald, 8 in making them contemporary 
with Charlemagne, would appear to endorse to some extent 
the hypothesis of Stronck. Short, in an excellent work 
on the North American Indians, tells us that one or at 
the most two thousand years only can have elapsed since the 
Mound Builders were compelled to abandon the valleys 
of the Ohio and its tributaries, and but seven or eight hundred 
since they retired from the shores of the Gulf of Mexico. 
Lastly the early explorers found mounds occupied and even 
being constructed within the last few hundred years. So we 
must content ourselves with the conclusion that, whatever 
the period of their initiation, it is probable that what may be 
called the epoch of mound-building, but recently terminated, 
has been of very long duration. These estimates, divergent 
as they are, may serve to give some idea of our ignorance 
in regard to the actual antiquity of these ruins. 

One thing is certain, no excavations of the mounds up to 
this date (1883) have yielded a single bone of those gigantic 
pachyderms, those extraordinary edentate creatures which 
frequently occur in earlier epochs. Must we not therefore 
conclude that these animals were extinct before the times of 
the Mound Builders? One of the mounds, however (fig. 
36), as already stated, is claimed to represent a mastodon, 
and some pipes from Iowa to represent elephants (fig. 72) ; 
and if these highly problematical assumptions are correct, one 
might presume that the Mound Builders knew, at least by 
tradition, of the animals they imitated ; but this point, like 
so many others, is still very obscure, and not free from com- 
plications due to fraudulent recently manufactured" relics." 

We must await in the future what the present cannot 
give us ; and meanwhile be on our guard against brilliant 
hypotheses, startling guesses, and over-rash conclusions. 

Repertoire chronologique de l'hist. des Mound Builders, "Cong, des 
Americ.," Luxembourg, 1877, vol. I., p. 312. 

3 A quelle race appartenaient des Mound Builders. 

* " Cong, des Americanistes," Luxembourg, vol. I., p. 50. 



CHAPTER V. 



THE CLIFF DWELLERS AND THE INHABITANTS OF THE 

PUEBLOS. 

The nineteenth century, now approaching its decline, has 
played a grand role in the history of humanity, and never 
have such great things been accomplished with such marvel- 
lous rapidity. We justly count amongst those who have 
had a glorious share in the common work, the bold travel- 
lers who have opened, or are opening, up whole conti- 
nents to civilization and progress. In America, as in Africa 
and Asia, the pioneers of science daily announce new dis- 
coveries. The vast regions of California, Arizona, New 
Mexico. Nevada, Colorado, and Utah, were, a few years ago, 
absolutely unknown. They are now intersected with rail- 
ways ; commerce and industry will shortly possess the land ; 
populous towns have sprung up, and new states contribute 
to the development of the United States, and the greatness 
of this people, youngest born of the nations, which is un- 
doubtedly predestined to play an important part in the fu- 
ture history of the world. 

While awaiting the brilliant future of the states recently 
or to be admitted to the Union, we have to cross much half 
desert, rude, and desolate region where the trees, chiefly 
pines, are rare and stunted, the vegetation is feeble and 
meagre, and nature would at first sight appear to be doomed 
to eternal solitude. The very wild animals have almost 
deserted these dreary wastes which are only haunted by 
wandering Indians, perhaps the wildest and most barbarous 
of all the existing aborigines of North America, who not 
long since would flee at the approach of the traveller unless 
they felt themselves strong enough to rob him. We must 
cross the San Juan river to reach the alluvial districts des- 

ig8 



THE CLIFF DWELLERS. 1 99 

tined doubtless to yield a harvest so rich that it is impossible 
to overestimate its importance. 

Things were different here in the past. These canons, as 




Fig. 86. — A Canon of the Colorado, 
are called the narrow gorges shut in between perpendicular 
rocks (fig. 86) with their deep ravines, these arid valleys 



200 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



covered with brushwood rarely more than a few feet high, 
this dreary lifeless nature, presents a most striking contrast 
with the ruins that rise up at every turn, bearing witness 
that for centuries, which it is impossible to estimate, these 
countries were inhabited by a numerous, active, and intelli- 
gent population. In many man has built houses, fortifica- 
tions, reservoirs, forming true cities ; the very rocks are 
adorned with painted or sculptured figures ; everywhere man 
has left behind him indelible marks of his presence. 

The Spanish, who were the first to cross Central America, 1 
gave the name of pueblo, which signifies a market-town or 
village, to groups of buildings, a great number of which, pre- 
senting every appearance of great antiquity, were already in 
ruins at the time of their victorious march. These buildings 
are found in the valleys drained by the San Juan, Rio Grande 
del Norte, Colorado Chiquito, and their tributaries for an 
area of two hundred thousand square miles. 2 The earliest 
inhabitants whose traces can be recognized evidently fol- 
lowed these valleys in their forward march, halting here and 
there where the soil was fertile, to be driven away by new- 
comers, who, like themselves, were seeking water and pas- 
turage. The struggle for existence is a universal law written 
in every country in letters of blood. 

Cabeca de Vaca speaks of some pueblos in ruins and others 
still inhabited 3 ; many he says were larger than the town of 
Mexico. The houses, often consisting of several stories, one 
behind the other as in our illustration (fig. 87), were of stone. 
The inhabitants lived in the upper stories,* and the ground 
floor, generally dark, served as a storeroom for food and 
fodder. These basements are known amongst the Spanish 
as Casas de comodidad or Almacenas (see Castaneda de Na- 
gera, Relacion de voy. de Cibola). The upper stories were 

'New Mexico was finally subdued in 1597 and 1598 by Don Juan de Ofiate. 
The first Spanish expedition took place in 1540, under Cabeca de Vaca, ship- 
wrecked on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico in 1535. 

3 Barber, " Cong, des Ame'ricanistes," Luxembourg, 1877, vol. I., p. 25. 

8 " Quarta Relacion. * * * Collecion de Documentos," vol. II., p. 475- 

4 Putnam, " Bull, of the Essex Institute," Dec, 1880. 



THE CLIFF DWELLERS. 



20I 



reached by means of ladders, and when these ladders were 
drawn up the occupiers enjoyed comparative security, and 
could defend themselves from attacks which must have been 
frequent enough judging from the countless quartz, obsid- 
ian, and agate arrow-points found everywhere about these 
dwellings. 

The buildings were nearly all of considerable size, and we 
shall describe some large enough to lodge several hundred 
families. Some, as the Taos pueblo (fig 87), were situated 
in the valley and were occasionally surrounded by a wall 
completing the defences ; others, as the Pueblo of Acoma for 
instance, 1 which is supposed to have occupied the site of the 
present village of Acuco, rises from several plateaux or ter- 




FlG. 87.— Pueblo of Taos, New Mexico. 

races called mesas, often situated several hundred feet above 
the valley, and only to be reached by all but impracticable 
paths. We can imagine the astonishment of the explorers 
when they saw all these ruins rising before them. " Im- 
agine," says a recent traveller, " the dry bed of a river shut 
in between steep inaccessible rocks of red sand-stone, and a 
man standing in that bed looking up at the habitations of 
his fellow-creatures perched on every ledge. Such is the 
scene spread out before us at every step." Another travel- 
ler speaks of the evident proofs of a considerable population 

1 Y' hallamos a un pueblo que se llama Acoma, donde nos parecio habria. 
mas de seis mil animas. Antonio de Espeja, " Carta," 23d April, 1584- Doc. 
ineditos del archivo de Indias, vol. XV., p. 179. 



:202 



P RE-HI S TORIC A M ERICA . 



having lived in these deserts, adding that there was not one 
of the six miles he had to explore that did not afford certain 
proof of having been inhabited for a considerable length of 
time by men absolutely distinct from and certainly superior 
to the wandering savages who alone traverse them now. 1 

Lastly, to quote another of the many accounts, Major 
Powell, United States geologist, expresses his surprise at 
seeing nothing for whole days but perpendicular cliffs every- 
where riddled with human habitations, which resemble the 
cells of a honeycomb more than anything else. 

In these districts, now nearly uninhabited, dwelt numer- 
ous people to whom has been given the name of Cliff Dwel- 
lers, from the rocks in which they made their homes. 

One point we can pronounce upon with certainty : we 
know beyond a doubt one of the chief causes of the depopu- 
lation of the country to be the diminished rainfall. The 
rainfall is very unequal in the United States. It averages 
about three feet on the Atlantic coast from Maine to Florida, 
On the slopes of the Pacific, north of San Francisco, the 
west winds bring very abundant rains, the average reaching 
some four feet. From the coasts of the Atlantic, and from 
the delta of the Mississippi, the quantity of rain gradually 
diminishes as the interior of the country is approached. In 
some parts of Texas, Kansas, and Nebraska, the average 
rainfall of the year diminishes to a foot and a half, and in 
parts of Colorado it is even considerably less. The very 
small rainfall watering all the districts between the plains of 
the far West and the Pacific coasts explains the poverty of 
the vegetation. 

The rivers, the very streams, are dried up, and we only find 
in the valleys the traces, already ancient, of dried-up water- 
courses. 

The rains of spring are of short duration, but plentiful. 
They pour down upon an impermeable soil with a rocky 
foundation, forming impetuous torrents known as washes. 
At certain times and places these washes rise to a height of 

1 Holmes : " Report on the Ancient Ruins of S. W. Colorado, examined 
during the summers of 1875 and 1876." 



THE CLIFF DWELLERS. 



203 



thirty to forty feet, carrying everything before them and 
often causing inundations. After these torrents the water 
does not long remain in the arroyos, but evaporates with 
great rapidity. At other seasons rain is unknown, and the 
intense heat of the climate adds to the effect of this constant 
aridity. Can it be attributed to geological or climatic 
changes ? Possibly it may, and Colonel Hoffman mentions 
an arroyo forty feet above the present level of the water 
about fifteen miles from the town of Prescott, Arizona. This 
is a curious fact, but it should be corroborated by many oth- 
ers before so important a decision can be arrived at, and it is 
possible that, as in Algeria, one cause of the persistent aridity 
was the reckless destruction of forests by the Cliff Dwellers. 

Holmes, one of the first to study the ruins of the Far 
West, on a truly scientific method, adopts the following 
classification, which it will be useful to quote. 1 

I. Lowland villages, in which dwelt the purely agricultural 
classes, the sites chosen being always in the most fertile val- 
ley -and close to rivers. 

II. Cave-Dwellings, caves artificially enlarged, often closed 
and strengthened with adobes or bricks of kneaded clay 
dried in the sun, such as are still used by the Indians for 
building their huts. 

III. Cliff-Houses, true fortresses to which the people of 
the valleys probably retired when danger threatened. 

The habitations in the valleys are regular pueblos ; they 
form parallelograms or circles marked out, where the nature 
of the ground permitted, with great regularity. All are 
built of stone carefully laid, and the crevices generally filled 
with clay and mud. The circular ruins met with are some- 
times those of towers used as defences or buildings sixty feet 
or more in diameter, enclosing several series of little apart- 
ments with one in the centre often half under ground, to 
which the Spaniards have given the name of estnfas, mean- 
ing literally stove or szv eating-room, in reference to their use 
as hot air bath-rooms or sweat-houses. 

1 L. c. p. 5. See also Jackson: " Ruins of S. W. Colorado in 1875 and 1877." 



204 



PRE-IIISTORIC AMERICA. 



The estufas have been much discussed. Some think they 
were council-chambers where the chiefs of the tribe met to 
discuss public affairs ; others look upon them as spots con- 
secrated for the presence of the sacred fire, so long the ob- 
ject of veneration to the Indians. 1 Others think the estufas 
were wells, but the testimony of Ruiz settles the question. 
Mariano Ruiz lived for a long time amongst the Pecos In- 
dians as a son of the tribe (Hijo del Pueblo), and he relates 
that these Indians preserved the sacred fire in an estufas 
until 1840, when the five families who alone survived became 
affiliated with another tribe. The fire was kept in a kind of 
oven and was never allowed to emit flames. Ruiz himself 
was in his turn charged to keep it up but he refused, influ- 
enced by the superstitious fear of the Indians, that he who 
should leave his brethren after having watched over the 
sacred fire would inevitably perish within the year. On ac- 
count of his refusal he was never allowed to enter estufas. 2 
It is certain that these estufas occur in all habitations, even 
in those situated above precipices, or on rocks not to be 
scaled without extreme difficulty, so that it is evident that 
great importance was attached to them by the inhabitants of 
the pueblos. In New Mexico and Colorado estufas are still 
met with, even in Christian villages, where they are looked 
upon with superstitious terror, perhaps as a last relic of the 
mysterious rites practised by the ancestors of the inhabi- 
tants. 3 

Besides the towers rising from the midst of the pueblo 
there are others generally round, rarely square or oblong 
(fig. 88), set up on points commanding a wide view, or at the 
entrances of canons. It is evident that these were posts of 

1 " These estufas, which are used as places of council and for the perform- 
ance of their religious rites, are still found at all the present occupied pueblos 
in New Mexico. There are six at Taos ; three at each house, and they are 
partly sunk in the ground by an excavation. They are entered by a trap door- 
way in the roof, the descent being by a ladder." Morgan : " Peabody Museum 
Report," vol. II., p. 547. Am. Assco., St. Louis, 1877. 

2 Bandeller, " Report on the Ruins of the Pueblo of Pecos." — " Cong. des. 
Americ," Luxembourg, 1877, vol. II., p. 230. 

3 Simpson, " Expedition to the Navajo Country," p. 78. 



- 



THE CLIFF DWELLERS. 205 

observation, where sentinels might be always on the watch 
to warn the inhabitants of any impending danger. The site 
of these posts was always admirably chosen ; one of them 
overlooks the whole of the MacElmo valley, commanding 
a view for several miles up and down ; another is situated at 
the spot where the Hovenweep divides into two branches. 
These towers have neither doors nor windows, and could 
doubtless only be entered from the roof. 

Near some of these dwellings long lines of walls have 
been made out varying from twelve to eighteen feet in 
height and built of adobes or simply of earth. These were 
probably corrals or enclosures for cattle. Evidently these 
people were more civilized than the Mound Builders. 

The cliffs themselves consist of sedimentary rocks, layers 
of hard sandstone very impervious to the action of the ele- 
ments alternating with beds of very friable rock containing 
fossil shells. The last-named beds have been in part disinte- 
grated by atmospheric action, and are riddled with holes 
and caves of every size, floored and roofed by the sandstone. 
In other places erosion has acted all along the outcrop of 
the bed so as to produce galleries, often of great length, 
though seldom very deep. Here and there a lofty promon- 
tory has been detached from the main cliff and has become 
even more difficult of access than the rest. 

The early inhabitants of the region under notice were 
wonderfully skilful in turning the result of the natural 
weathering of the rocks to account. To construct a " cave 
dwelling" the entrance to the cave or the front of the open 
gallery was walled up with adobes, leaving only a small 
opening serving for both door and window. 

The " cliff houses " take the form and dimensions of the 
platform or ledge from which they rise. The masonry is 
well laid, and it is wonderful with what skill the walls are 
joined to the cliff and with what care the aspect of the 
neighboring rocks has been imitated in the external archi- 
tecture. Some explorers consider these houses to be more 
recent than the pueblos or the caves ; the few arrow-points, 



206 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



stone implements, and fragments of pottery which have 
been picked up do not justify an expression of opinion. 

Several burial-places of the Cliff Dwellers have been found, 
but the difficulty attending their excavation, and the dangers 
to which the members of the United States survey who 
undertook it were exposed, have prevented any repetition of 
their examination. Nothing has been found but a few 
human bones, with weapons, implements, and pottery always 
placed near them. Like the Mound Builders and all the 
ancient races of America, the Cliff Dwellers were actuated 
by a hope of a future life for their departed ones, as it 
proved by this provision for their supposed needs. 

We must also mention enclosures of considerable extent 
containing upright stones like the cromlechs of Europe, 
arranged in circles. Excavations have been made in one of 
these enclosures on the left bank of the Dolores ; the original 
soil, which had not been displaced, was quickly reached, and 
rested on the surface of the rock itself. At a depth of six 
inches was found a layer of cinders mixed with fragments of 
pottery, but no bones justifying us in supposing the enclos- 
ures to have been burial-places, nor has the chemical analysis 
of the cinders yielded any trace of animal matter, so that 
the idea of cremation is excluded. 1 

Having enumerated, in a general way, the various struc- 
tures attributed to the Cliff Dwellers, a few details respect- 
ing each will render their importance clearer. 

The Rio Mancos 2 flows between cliffs, formed of alter- 
nate beds of cretaceous limestone and a clayey deposit, in 
many parts disintegrated and worn away by the action of 
water. One of the indentations thus formed, situated about 
forty feet above the level of the river, is between four and 

1 Jackson, /. c, pp. 415, 421, etc. 

2 The Mancos rises in the La Plata mountains, on the southwest of the Col- 
orado, and flows into the San Juan. The other tributaries of the San Juan, to 
which we shall have occasion to refer, are the La Piedra, Los Pinos, Las Ani- 
mas, La Plata, the MacElmo, Hovenweep, and the Montezuma. The two last 
are almost always dried up. On the south, the San Juan receives the Navajo* 
Chaco, and Chelly. 




Fig. 88. — Tower near Epsom Creek. 



207 



208 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 




Fig. 89. — Cliff-house on theRio 
Mancos. 



six feet deep. 1 In this nar- 
row space the Cliff Dwellers 
had set up their homes. 
Seven of these homes still 
remain, four in a sufficiently 
good state of preservation 
for the mode of their con- 
struction to be made out. 
The walls are of stones, ce- 
mented with clay mixed with 
cinders and charcoal. 2 This 
mortar was strengthened by 
the insertion, in the intersti- 
ces, of pebbles or little bits of 
pottery, and to this day we 
can make out in this masonry 
the marks of the tools used, 
and even the fingers of the 
workmen. All the openings 
are very narrow, and the 
doors and windows are only 
a few inches in width or 
height. In the midst of the 
ruins a cellar was discovered, 
choked up with a mass of 
rubbish, once a store of food, 
from which half-calcined 
grains of maize have been 
taken, of a species still culti- 
vated in the country. A 
hatchet of polished stone 
and a few fragments of pot- 

1 Holmes: Loc. cit., p. 393, pi. 
XXXV. 

2 Castaneda (" Voy. de Cibola," II., 
ch. iv., p. 168), says: "They have 
no lime, and they replace it by a mix- 
ture of cinders, charcoal, and clay.". 



THE CLIFF DWELLERS. 



209 



tery were the only other objects found in the excavations, 
which had to be rapidly executed. 

Another group (fig. 89), a short distance from the first, 
rises from the indentations of the rock, which towers above 
the river to a height of about two hundred feet. The lower 
structures occupy a free space, sixty feet long by about fif- 
teen feet at its widest part (fig. 90). The walls are about 
one foot thick, and are flush with the very edge of the preci- 
pice. They are erected with skill, the angles are regular, 
the lines do not diverge from the perpendicular, and, when 
the difficulties the builder had to contend with in laying his 
foundations in such a position and at such a height are taken 




Fig. 90. — Cliff-house on the Rio Mancos (ground plan). 



into account, these aerial dwellings may well excite our ad- 
miration. In the centre we find the inevitable estufa, and, 
as far as we can now tell, it could only be entered by an 
opening of twenty-two inches ; and, moreover, in order to 
reach this strange door, a regular tunnel, thirty feet long, 
had to be crawled through. The various rooms were sep- 
arated by division walls, which did not reach to the rock 
above, so that communication between them was easy by 
means of movable ladders. 

Some hastily conducted excavations yielded two vases of 
coarse pottery, closed with stone covers of equally rude 
workmanship. These vases, which would hold three gallons, 
were empty ; one of them had been mended with a fragment 
of the same color, stuck upon it with viscous clay ; they 



2IO 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



were placed on a bed of bark fibres covered with a mat of 
woven reeds, 1 another proof of the value placed upon them 
by their owner. 

Between the two houses the rock is absolutely vertical ; at 
a place where the slope is a little less abrupt some steps 
roughly indicated rather than cut in the rocks have been 
made out. At present they offer very little assistance in 
climbing the cliff. It is probable, however, that these in- 
dentations, never very deep, have suffered by weathering. 

At the level of the upper story another ledge has per- 
mitted the erection of another structure. This second plat- 
form is about one hundred and twenty feet long by ten 
at its greatest width. The work appears never to have been 
completed. The Cliff Dwellers were probably discouraged 
by the difficulties in the way of bringing their materials 
to the spot. 

The finished parts had been inhabited, and the rooms 
communicated with each other by means of low and narrow 
doors. In one of these rooms the explorers thought they 
recognized traces of a fire, in others the excavations yielded 
some grains of maize and some kidney beans; but unfortu- 
nately the explorers, exhausted with a long march, could not 
or did not search further. 

In some instances the houses of the Cliff Dwellers were at a 
very much greater height. Some are mentioned, by Holmes, 
eight hundred feet above the level of the river, so well con- 
cealed that even with the aid of a telescope they can hardly 
be distinguished from the rocks protecting them. We lose 
ourselves in conjectures on the means employed to reach the: 
places from which the buildings rise, or to take to them 
provisions and other necessaries of life. Ives, in his report 
on the Colorado River of the West, tells us that to-day the j 
,Moquis often build at very great elevations, carrying the 
[stones and earth needed in packs on their shoulders. For a 
[long time it was supposed that all the Cliff men had to 
jgo down to the river to draw water; but fresh researches 

- 1 Holmes : Loc. cit., pi. XLV. 



THE CLIFF DWELLERS. 



211 



have led to the discovery in certain localities in the cliffs 
themselves of springs, the waters of which supplied their 
needs and were stored up in natural or artificially enlarged 
reservoirs. 




A mile farther on, still following the banks of the Rio 
Mancos, Jackson discovered a structure seven hundred feet 
above the level of the river (figs 91 and 92). This building, 
to which he gave the name of the Two-story Cliff House* 



212 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



is better preserved than any of those surrounding it. One 
of the rooms measures nine feet by ten, another is six 
feet square, while the height of the building is twelve feet, 
and there is a space of between two and three feet between 
the walls and the rock which overhangs them like a roof. 
These rooms, which appear to us so small, were large for 
the Cliff Dwellers, and Jackson speaks of another place 
where a space of fourteen feet long by six wide and five 
high was divided into two rooms of nearly equal size, to 
which entrance was gained through a little square hole. 
Examples might easily be multiplied ; at Montezuma, 
for instance, there are cells of which the largest are not more 



than nine and a half feet square, whilst the smaller ones are 
not quite four feet square. It seems astonishing that human 
creatures could exist in such cramped spaces ! 

The inside walls of these rooms (fig. 93) were covered 
with several coatings of clay moistened with water. This 
mortar was laid on with the hand ; the marks of the fingers 
of the workmen leave no doubt on that point. The small- 
ness of these fingers has even led some to suppose that the 
work was done by women. 

The same care was bestowed on the outside coating, and 
the mortar is gray or pinkish in color, exactly imitating 
that of the neighboring rocks. It is impossible to say 




Fig. 93. — Interior of a room in a cliff-house. 



THE CLIFF DWELLERS. 



213 



whether this is the result of the action of time, or if the 
workmen selected the clay with a view of better concealing 
their homes. 

Were these cliff-houses only places of refuge, to which the 
inhabitants of the valley retired on the approach of danger? 
Holmes says that we are tempted to suppose they were, 
when we note the all but total absence of the bones of men 
or animals, or of the refuse of all kinds so plentiful in the 
kitchen middens, and which are proofs of long residence. 




Fig. 94. — Pueblo of the MacElmo valley (ground plan). 

The coatings of clay have remained as fresh and compact as 
when they were first laid on ; a fact especially noticeable in 
the Two-story Cliff-House ; and if it had been long inhab- 
ited it must have undergone a thorough repair just before 
it was deserted. Other explorers, it is true, speak of char- 
coal and traces of fire as proving a lengthy sojourn of man ; 
but archeologists too generally come to the study of such 
remains with preconceived notions, which notions are too 
often reflected in the impressions of travellers. 



214 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



The MacElmo valley contains ruins no less important 
than those just mentioned. We reproduce (fig. 94) a plan 
of one of them, which is useful as giving an idea of the gen- 
eral arrangement of a pueblo. The large tower or estufa 
presents a certain resemblance to the singular structures in 
the Balearic Isles to which the name of Talayoti has been 
given. It is built of unhewn stone, and is surrounded by a 
triple wall. The space between the two external walls is 
only five feet, and it contains fourteen cells. Another 
estufa, with walls more than three feet thick, is situated at 




Fig. 95. — Tower on the summit of a rock in the MacElmo valley. 

one of the extremities. The rooms, or rather the cells, are 
rectangular and all extremely small. 

This pueblo is in the heart of a rather barren district, and 
and is about a mile from the MacElmo river, which always 
dries up in summer. The unfortunate inhabitants must then 
have been reduced for several months in the year to fetching 
their water from the Dolores, at a distance of fifteen miles, 
if we suppose the conditions to have remained unchanged. 
This is, however, quite an inadmissible idea, for no agricul- 



THE CLIFF DWELLERS. 21$ 

tural population could have lived under such conditions. 
" To suppose an agricultural people existing in such a local- 
ity, with the present climate, is manifestly absurd," says 
Holmes (p. 399) ; " yet every isolated rock and every bit of 
mesa within a circle of miles is strewn with remnants of 
human dwellings (fig. 95). We must therefore admit, as 
we have already stated, considerable climatic changes since 
the time when the country was peopled." 

The same remark applies with even greater force to the 
ruins of Aztec Spring in Colorado, so called after a spring 
(E, fig. 96) that Captain Moss speaks of having found, but 
which has disappeared since his journey. These ruins (fig. 
96), situated on the Mesa Verde, at an equal distance from 
the MacElmo and the Mancos, cover an area of 480,000 
square feet, and represent an average of 1,500,000 cubic 
feet of masonry. 

The principal building forms a rectangle (A), eighty feet by 
one hundred, surrounded by a double wall and divided into 
three separate rooms. The walls are twenty-six inches thick 
and vary from twelve to fifteen feet in height ; between the 
two walls are twenty cells whose purpose it is difficult to 
guess, but which may have been store-rooms. 

Three estufas (B, C, and D) rise in the centre of the en- 
closure, and as far as can be judged in their present condi- 
tion, they may well have served as cisterns for keeping the 
water needed by the inhabitants. 

The division walls are of adobe brick, the outer walls of 
blocks of fossiliferous limestone from the Mesa Verde, all 
symmetrically hewn and cemented with clay mixed with 
the dust of the decomposed carbonate of lime abundant in 
the neighborhood. It is doubtless thanks to this mortar 
that the ruins of Aztec Spring are so well preserved. 

The Hovenweep, now entirely dry (the name is borrowed 
from the Ute language and signifies desert canon), once 
flowed between abrupt and desolate cliffs. Everywhere in 
the valley we meet with series of ruins, including at every 
turn those strange dwellings of several stories perched — 



2l6 P RE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 

that is just the expression for it — on all the ledges or ter- 
races of the cliffs. Here we note the exceptional circum- 
stance that the houses are circular, their diameter not ex- 




FlG. 96. — Aztec Spring (ground plan). 

ceeding twelve to fifteen feet, the angles are rounded, and the 
walls built of stones, each as large as three ordinary bricks. 



THE CLIFF DWELLERS. 



21/ 



Every thing seems to have been done with a view to de- 
fence 1 the houses were all but inaccessible, and little watch- 
towers had been erected at every point commanding an ex- 
tended view. On a natural terrace measuring scarcely three 
hundred feet by fifty, situated at the very source of the 
Hovenweep, the Cliff Dwellers had managed to erect no less 
than forty different houses. 

Montezuma valley 1 is at certain points ten miles wide. 
It is covered with ruins : towers with a triple enclosure, 
mounds made up in a great measure of pieces of broken pot- 
tery. The cliffs overlooking the valley present a long series 
of caves, ledges, and rock-shelters, invariably turned to ac- 
count by man (fig. 97). In many places holes have been 
observed, cut in the rock at regular distances, in which the 
feet and hands could be successively placed. These were 
the only means of access ; no tree native to these valleys 
could have supplied ladders long enough to reach these 
eagles' nests. In one of these rock-shelters the explorer 
discovered the skeleton of a man, wrapped in a covering 
with broad black and white stripes. This man had, how- 
ever, no connection with the ancient inhabitants of these 
aerial dwellings. According to all appearances he was a 
Navajo, a victim to the incessant warfare between his tribe 
and the Utes. 

We must also mention seven erect stones in the Monte- 
zuma valley, which rise in the midst of its desert like the 
menhirs of Brittany or Wales. Later observations, however, 
lead to a belief that these were not menhirs, but pillars in- 
tended to strengthen defensive works. Defence, in fact, seems 
to have ever occupied the thoughts of these men ; for in a 
radius of fifteen miles, at every point commanding the valley 
or that could serve as a post of observation, we find blocks torn 
from the neighboring rocks and piled up one on the other, 
the interstices being filled with small stones to consolidate 
the mass. Every thing bears witness to the presence of a 
numerous population ; such works can indeed only have been 
constructed by numbers. 



1 Jackson, /. c, p. 427 et. seq. 



218 



PRE-HIS TORIC A M ERICA . 



The rocks of the Rio de Chelly enclose habitations ex- 
actly similar to those we have just described. In fact we 
are doomed to inevitable repetition in describing the remains 
of the Cliff Dwellers, of whom these buildings, a few frag- 
ments of pottery, and wretched flint implements are the only 




Fig. 97 — House in a rock of Montezuma canon. 



relics. On the Rio de Chelly, as in the Montezuma valley 
and on the banks of the Mancos or the MacElmo, natural 
and artificial caves, depressions, and the smallest ledges have 
been turned to account. The buildings are often of excep- 



THE CLIFF DWELLERS. 



219 



tional importance, and Jackson, (/. c, p. 421) speaks of some 
ruins at an elevation of seventy feet which he calls a Cave 
town. They are 545 feet long by a maximum width of forty 
feet. Nearly all include a ground-floor and one story ; one of 
them indeed has two stories, and is supposed to have been the 
house of the chief. The walls are everywhere very thin, 
none of them exceeding one foot in thickness, while some 
are but half as much. The stones are imbedded in a thick 
mortar and coated with it inside and out. Seventy-five sepa- 
rate rooms have been made out, with the inevitable estufa 
in the centre, and behind the house are two little reservoirs 
for holding water. None of these houses have any openings 
but the windows which almost all face an inside court, and 
examination has resulted in the discovery of no means of ac- 
cess but broken pieces of rock and natural fissures which 
might be used as a help in climbing ; several corrals or interior 
courts, are still full of dung reduced to dust ; how did these 
Cliff men ever get cattle up to such a height, and how could 
they subsist them on steep rocks with no outlets? Any 
number of guesses may be made, but it must be admitted 
that none are completely satisfactory. The height of the 
rocks of schistose sandstone which crown these structures is 
no less than two hundred feet above the foot of the Mesa. 
The descent from this point is therefore even more difficult 
than the ascent from the valley. The Mesa is arid, desolate, 
and covered with stunted vegetation. 

At the foot of the rocks we see a number of upright 
stones surrounding rectangular spaces such as those of 
which we have already spoken. Here, too, excavations 
have produced nothing to suggest that these stones marked 
burial-places. Some red earthenware, knives, hatchets, 
awls, and finely chipped stone arrow-points are all that have 
been found. 

We give a drawing (fig. 99) of a house built at a height 
of seventy feet about two miles from Cave Town. This 
will help us to realize the difficulties of access and the 
means employed to surmount them. The house is one 



220 



PKE-H1S T0R1C A ME RICA . 



story high ; the ground-floor measures eighteen feet by ten,, 
and this narrow space forms two separate rooms, whilst the 
first story consists of only one. The overhanging rock 
serves as a protecting roof. Eight miles from Cave Town 
is another group of similar buildings of smaller size. 

The whole of Epsom Creek valley, so called after a 
stream of brackish water which is said to taste something 
like Epsom salts, is covered with ruins of a smaller size than 
those already noticed. These are chimney-like caves (fig. 
98), which Jackson calls " cubby-holes," and are situated 
now on the banks of a stream, now wedged like sandwiches 
between the layers of rock. These dwellings generally con- 
tain but a single room, the walls of which are so perfectly 




Fig. 98. — Cave-Town near the San Juan. 

coated that even now there is not a crack in the mortar. 
The entrance to the valley was defended by a tower (fig. 88) 
on an inaccessible elevation, which Mr. Jackson made many 
fruitless efforts to scale ; on the opposite bank of the stream 
rises another circular tower forty feet in diameter, of which 
the antiquity is attested by its crumbling walls covered with 
moss and brushwood. 

A few miles up stream, on the banks of a deep ravine, are 
ruins presenting the aspect of a fortified town. Explorers 
found themselves face to face with a great mass of rectan- 
gular form, with towers connected with each other and ar- 
ranged on either side of the ravine, so as to command all 



222 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



the approaches. The dominant idea amongst these people 
seems to have been dread of the attacks of enemies, hence 
the necessity of being always prepared to repulse them. 
" The San Juan valley," said the San Francisco Evening 
Bulletin of July 8, 1864, " is strewn with ruins for hundreds 
of miles ; some buildings three stories high, of masonry, are 
still standing." 

The buildings on the banks of the La Plata, twenty-five 
miles from its junction with the San Juan, and five miles 
south of the Southern Pacific Railroad, should also be men- 




FlG. 100. — Casa Grande in the Gila valley. 

tioned, if only on account of their peculiar arrangement. 
They stretch away irregularly throughout the valley ; each 
family had its own home. Every thing bears witness to a 
state of culture different from those hitherto noticed. The 
family seems to have come into existence, and isolated 
dwellings, such as we meet with in all countries of Europe, 
show still better the independence of their inhabitants. 
"These houses," says Holmes (I.e., p. 388), "seem to be 
distributed very much as dwelling-houses are in the rural 
districts of civilized and peaceable communities." 



THE CLIFF DWELLERS. 



22$ 



Cliff houses are as numerous in Arizona as in New Mexico, 
but their sites seem to have been better chosen, and the 
foundations are of stone, though there is nothing to lead us 
to suppose them to be older than the walls of adobes rising 
from them. We have now reached the extreme southern 
limit of the districts occupied by the Cliff Dwellers, and the 
vast heaps of broken earthenware met with at every turn 
bear witness to the great length of their residence. 

Amongst all these ruins, the Casa Grande (fig. 100) 
merits special mention. It rises from a little eminence in 
the valley of the Rio Gila, two miles and a half from the 
river, and it appears certain that it had existed for several 
centuries before the arrival of the Spaniards, who knew of it 
from the time of their very earliest expeditions ; indeed, it 
is generally admitted that it is to it that Coronado refers 
under the name of the chichilticalle or the red house. The 
first at all complete description, however, which has come 
down to us, is that of Father Mange, who visited the Casa 
Grande with Father Kino, in 1697. 1 It appears that at that 
date the ruins included eleven different buildings, surmounted 
by a protective wall of moderate height. Now these build- 
ings are reduced to three, only one of which is still in a state 
permitting of its examination. It is built of large adobes 
measuring four feet by two, and it is fifty feet by forty feet 
in size. The walls are five feet thick at the base, and gradu- 
ally decrease in breadth toward the top.' 2 The inside is di- 
vided in five rooms (fig. fOi), much larger than any hitherto 
described. The central of these rooms are eight feet long by 
fourteen wide ; the others are as much as thirty two feet 
long by ten wide. 3 Fragments of cedar-wood beams, still 
inserted in the walls, prove that the buildings originally con- 
sisted of three, perhaps in its central portion of four, stories. 

1 "Doc, Hist. Mex.," Series IV., vol. I., p. 282. Bancroft : loc. cit., vol. 
IV., p. 621, et seq. 

2 Bartlett : "Personal Narrative of Explorations and Incidents in Texas, New 
Mexico, California, Sonora, and Chihuahua." New York, 1854, vol. II., p. 
271, et seq. 

3 Judging by the plan, these measurements appear to be mere rough approxi- 
mations. 



224 



PRE- HIS TORIC A M ERICA . 



No staircase, nor any thing to take its place, can be made 
out, so that communication between the stories must have 
taken place by means of ladders. A vast conflagration has 
everywhere left indelible traces, and this is supposed to have 
been the work of the Apaches, the wildest and most indomi- 
table of all the Indian tribes. 

The Casa Grande was the centre of an important estab- 
lishment. Bartlett tells us that in every direction as far as 
the eye can reach we see crumbling walls and masses of rub- 
bish, the remains of old buildings ; while Fathers Mange, 
Kino, and Font say that the plain was covered for a radius 
of ten miles with hillocks of adobes turned to dust. In fact 
volumes would not suffice to describe all the ruins in these 



regions or all the people who have inhabited them. We can 
only name those of the valley of the Rio Salado and its 
tributary the Rio Verde, the former of which flows into the 



Several acequias, or canals for irrigation also bear witness 
to the industry of the inhabitants. 2 Father Mange speaks 
of one near the Casa Grande, intended to receive the waters 
of the Gila. This canal was twenty-seven feet wide by ten 
deep and was three leagues long. These figures, we must 
add, appear exaggerated to later travellers, though they 
mention another canal in the Salado valley which must have 
been nearly as wide, and was four or five feet deep. The 
Cliff Dwellers then did not shrink from such undertakings, 
any more than did the Mound Builders, when they were 

1 Bancroft, vol. IV., pp. 632 and 635. 
Whipple, Ewbank, and Turner : " Report upon the Indian Tribes." 




Fig. ioi. — Ground plan of the Casa Grande. 



Gila. 



THE CLIFF DWELLERS. 



225 



helpful to their commerce or their agriculture. They illus- 
trate perhaps better then their buildings to what a degree 
of culture these people had attained. 

We must now compare with the Casa Grande of the Rio 
Gila some other yet more extensive ruins, resembling them 
in every respect, situated in Chihuahua. These buildings, 
to which the Spaniards have given the same name of Casas 
Grandes, deserve mention here, as they are evidently the 
work of the same race and date from the same epoch as 
those of Arizona. 

These Casas Grandes are situated in the San Miguel val- 
ley, not far from the present boundary between the United 
States and Mexico. The country is occupied by the 
Apaches, who make all exploration dangerous. 1 

Masses of rubbish in the midst of which rise parts of walls 
some of them fifty feet high, indicate the old site of the 
town. The walls were built of adobes. 'These adobes were 
of very irregular length and twenty-two inches thick, while 
the walls themselves were nearly five feet wide and simply 
coated with clay moistened with water. The chief building 
was 800 feet long on the fronts facing north and south, 
but only 250 on those to the east and west. The " Album 
Mexicano " says 1380 feet by 414, and Bartlett, from whom 
we quote our figures, probably did not include detached 
buildings in the sum total. In 185 1 when Bartlett visited 
them there were neither stones nor beams to be seen, and the 
state of dilapidation was such that neither the marks of a 
floor nor of a staircase could be made out ; nor could he tell 
the number or height of the stories. Other less conscien- 
tious explorers assert that the principal buildings were three 
stories high and surmounted by a terrace. 

He had the same difficulties to contend with in examining 
the internal arrangements ; but in one place he made out 

1 Arleguy: " Chron. de la Prov. de S. Francisco de Zacatecas," Mexico, 1737, 
p. 104. Clavigero : "St. Ant. del Messico," vol. I., p. 159. Escudero : 
" Noticias del Estado de Chihuahua," p. 234. "Album Mexicano," Mexico, 
1849, vol. L, p. 374. Bartlett, " Personal Narrative," New York, 1834, vol. 
II., p. 347. 



226 



PRE-H1S70RIC AMERICA. 



six chambers twenty feet by six in extent, and this restricted 
space, was still further curtailed by a little niche three to 
four feet high at the end of each chamber, the use of which 
is unknown. 

A short distance off, other buildings surround a square 
court. Here too we find the little cells which are one of 
the characteristic features of the Casas Grandes as of the 
cliff-houses and the pueblos. This is an important indi- 
cation of similar habits, and of the similar origin of the 
builders. 

There are more than 2000 mounds in the neighborhood of 
the Casas Grandes, and it is probable that they were burial- 
places. Excavations have not, however, produced a single 
human bone. All that has been picked up are a few stone 
axes, clumsy earthenware statuettes and fragments of pot- 
tery, decorated with red, black, or brown ornaments on a 
generally white ground. 

A few miles farther off rises a regular fortress, not built of 
adobes, but of well-dressed stones put together without 
mortar of any kind. The walls are from ten to twenty feet 
thick, and the summit is reached by a path cut in the rock. 
There is nothing to show whether this fortress was erected 
to defend the Casas Grandes, or even if it existed when that 
little town flourished. 

Important ruins are to be seen on either side of the Col- 
orado Chiquito, one of the upper branches of the Colorado. 
They date from different epochs, and on foundations of un- 
wrought stone we find, as in Arizona, walls made of adobes 
or of wood. Numerous fragments of fine light pottery, sel- 
dom painted, bits of obsidian and of rocks mostly foreign to 
the locality, also witness to the presence of man. 1 

Among the ruins is one building measuring 120 feet by 
360, situated on an isolated eminence. The walls have all 
but crumbled away, but we can still see that they were 

^itgreaves, " Report of an Expedition down the Zuniand Colorado Rivers," 
p. 8, Washington, 1853. Whipple, '•' Report and Explorations near the 35th 
Parallel." B. Molhausen, " Tagebuch einer reise vom Mississippi nach dem 
kusten der Sud See," Leipzig, 1858. 



THE CLIFF DWELLERS. 



227 



twelve feet thick. Inside we find the same little cells we 
have so often described. We must also mention a fort, if 
we may so call it, which rises from the western bank of 
Beaver Creek. 1 

The river flows between deep canons, presenting a deso- 
late aspect. Toward the middle of a cliff with perpendicular 
walls and no means of access, at a height of a hundred feet, 
rises a square tower of admirably dressed stone, which may 
have been from thirty to thirty-five feet high. Each story 
rising behind the one below contains but a single room, the 
dimensions of which vary from four to eight feet square by 
a height of three to five feet. The floors are of beams 
roughly squared, and the openings are few and very narrow. 
It is extremely difficult to penetrate this tower. Through- 
out the valley, as far as Montezuma Wells, rise similar 
towers, which have been justly compared by a traveller to 
swallows' nests. It must have required unheard of labor to 
transport and work the stones under such conditions. We 
ask ourselves what manner of men were the builders and 
what can have been their aim ; but we are unable to answer 
these constantly repeated questions. 

But Ave have not yet exhausted the surprises which await 
us in these regions ; that is, if we can accept with full con- 
fidence the account of Captain Walker, who speaks of having 
discovered in 1850, on the banks of the Colorado Chiquito, a 
regular citadel, situated in the centre of a town, the ruins of 
which extend for more than a mile, and of which the streets 
running at right angles with each other are still recognizable. 2 
" A storm of fire," he says, " had passed over the town ; the 
stones are calcined by the flames ; the very rock from which 
the chief building rises bears traces of fusion ; every thing 
testifies to the intensity of the heat." 

Before entirely rejecting an account which no one has yet 
confirmed we must remember that more important traces 

1 Dr. Hoffman : " Ethn. Obs. on Indians Inhabiting Nevada, California, and 
Arizona," U. S. Geol. and Geog. Survey, 1876. 

2 San Francisco Herald, quoted by Bancroft, " Native Races," vol. IV., 
p. 647. 



228 



PRE-HIS T0R1C A M ERICA . 



exist in Missouri, on the Gasconade River, not far from St. 
Louis, of an ancient town with regular squares, roads cross- 
ing each other at right angles, and houses of unwrought 
stone without any traces of mortar. We may also mention 
similar ruins at Buffalo Creek and on the Osage River. 1 

Some time ago Major Powell ascended for some hundreds 
of miles the Great Colorado, still so little known. He tells 
of having noticed in dreary and deserted regions traces of a 
population now completely passed away. Everywhere in 
the valleys are pueblos, and cliff-houses are seen at every 
turn in the wild and picturesque canons, among rocks about 
4,800 feet high, and where the cliffs sometimes lean 
so closely together that one is tempted to believe that the 
river sinks into a subterranean passage like the tunnels of a 
railway. Round about these abandoned habitations the 
travellers found fragments of pottery, arrow-points, and chips 
of quartz, similar to those which have been picked up every- 
where in Central America. 

We have described numerous buildings situated in the 
valleys at the foot of the rocks on which the cliff-houses 
were built, all the approaches to which were defended by 
watch-towers or other posts of observation. Every thing 
tells of constant reprisals, of incessant peril, and formidable 
enemies. But there are yet other more considerable ruins, 
of more imposing appearance as a whole, the former in- 
habitants of which do not appear to have been exposed 
to the same dangers. 

These formed peaceable communities, exclusively agricul- 
tural, in which communism under the authority of a despotic 
chief appears to have been the prevalent system. Gregg, 
who crossed New Mexico about 1840, was the first to 
describe them, 2 and he tells us that the ruins of the Pueblo 
Bonito in the Navajo country, at the foot of the mountains 
included houses built of slabs of sandstone, a mode of con- 

1 Conant : " Foot-prints of Vanished Races," p. 71. 

2 " Commerce des Prairies," vol. I., p. 284, New York, 1844. The pueblo 
of which Gregg speaks under the name of the Bonito Pueblo is probably the 
Pintado Pueblo. 



THE CLIFF DWELLERS. 



229 



struction quite unknown in the country at present. These 
houses are still intact, though their antiquity is such that we 
are absolutely ignorant of their origin. 

In 1849, Colonel Washington, Governor of New Mexico, 
organized an expedition* against the Navajos, who infested 
the northern part of the territory, and it is to Lieutenant, 
afterward General, Simpson, attached to the topographical 



on 

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□□□ 
□□□ 
□□□ 
□□□ 





□cl 

□□□Qa 
□□□□0 

"□a 
□0 



lad (£3 ce/i eZreA 



7/ % 



£aA ck c&ruZreA 



Fig. 102. — Ground plan of the Pueblo Bonito in the Chaco Canon. 

department of the army, that we owe the first regular plans 
of the ruins met with by the soldiers at every turn in cross- 
ing the Chaco Canon. 1 

The Bonito Pueblo is the most important of these villages 
(fig. 102). It will be well to describe it with some detail, 2 to 
be able to compare it with other pueblos closely resembling 

1,1 Report, Secretary of War," Thirty-first Congress, First Session. 
3 Ruins of Chaco Canon examined in 1877. Jackson, /. c, 432, 440, et seq. % 
pi. LVIII. 



230 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



it in their chief arrangements. We must add, however, that 
most of them are of rectangular plan, and that they present 
a unity of design that we do not find to the same extent in 
the Bonito Pueblo. 

This pueblo, built doubtless by degrees as the necessities 
of the moment dictated, rises below the perpendicular rocks 
which limit the Chaco Canon, and forms an irregular half of 
an ellipse measuring five hundred and forty-four feet by 
four hundred and fourteen. An inside court is divided into 
two almost equal portions by a row of four estufas. 

Two wings are placed perpendicularly to the principal 
building. The left wing is divided into three rows of 
parallel rooms, measuring from twelve to twenty feet long 
by from twelve to fifteen wide, larger than those of the cliff- 
houses. The outer walls are in ruins, but the division walls 
in pretty good preservation still reach up to the second 
story. This wing forms a quarter of a circle, and although 
the whole of this portion has suffered very much we can still 
make out five rows of cells, with nine cells to each row. 
Lastly we must mention three estufas, half underground, 
a little in advance of the buildings. 

In the right wing the walls are better preserved ; they are 
still thirty feet high, and four different stories, one above 
the other, have been made out. 1 This part of the buildings 
appeared to the explorers to be the most recent portion of 
the whole pueblo, some of the beams which supported the 
floor are still in their places, and from them we can judge 
how the different rooms, the largest of the pueblo, were 
arranged. 

The state of decay of part of the ruins is such that it is 
impossible to decide on the exact number of the rooms. In 
a neighboring pueblo, that of Pintado, one hundred and 
fifty have been counted, and every thing points to the con- 
clusion that there were even more in the Pueblo Bonito. 

1 There are also several stories in the neighboring pueblos. The Pueblo 
Pintado has four ; the second, ten feet high ; the third, seven. The Pueblo of 
the Arroyo has three stories, and many others might be quoted. 



THE CLIFF DWELLERS. 



231 



Neither the inner nor the outer walls show any trace of 
stairs, so that it is probable the inhabitants went from one 
story to another by means of ladders — a mode of access still 
obtaining in the pueblos now inhabited. The windows are 
extremely small, and their lintels consist of pieces of cedar 
orpine wood scarcely squared and merely laid side by side. 
The floors must have been of wood, but most of them were 
used by Colonel Washington's soldiers to feed their camp- 
fires. 

The walls of the eastern side are pretty well preserved, 
and rise to the height of the second story. On this side are 
the two largest estufas of the pueblo, their diameter exceed- 




FlG. 103. — Different kinds of masonry used in the buildings of the Chaco 

Valley. 

ing fifty feet. They were situated in the centre of a court, 
and covered by a mass of masonry, forming a rectangle of 
one hundred and fifteen feet by sixty-five. Farther on, 
masses of rubbish mark the site of buildings, the use of 
which cannot be made out, connecting the large estufas with 
two small ones, which touched the chief buildings. In the 
court itself, a series of excavations, filled with rubbish of all 
kinds, suggests a set of subterranean passages, and it 
is to be regretted that this interesting point has not been 
verified. 

The masonry, generally remarkable for the care and pre- 
cision with which it is executed, contrasts strangely with 
that now to be seen amongst the sedentary Indians. The 



232 



PRE-HIS TORIC A ME RICA . 



people of the pueblos always selected the largest stones to 
frame the openings, and they placed them exactly at right 
angles. In the very diverse buildings which make up the 
Pueblo Bonito, this masonry presents remarkable differ- 
ences (fig. 103) ; it does not all seem to date from the same 
period, and it may be that parts have been restored at more 
recent epochs than that of the original buildings. In many 
parts the walls are strengthened with round pieces of wood,, 
three to four inches in diameter, set upright ; and, by others, 
ten to fifteen feet long by six to eight inches in diame- 
ter, arranged horizontally. We find a similar plan adopted 
in the islands of Greece, 1 subject, as they are, to disas- 
trous earthquakes, and the same causes may have led the 
inhabitants of New Mexico to take the same precautions. 
Let us not weary of calling attention to the similitude in 
the intellect of man and the identity in his ideas all over 
the surface of the globe. For, truly, it is one of the most 
curious points of the study in which we are engaged. 

We must also note the great number of estufas which 
everywhere rise amidst the ruins under notice. Jackson has 
counted twenty-one of them. They are generally remark- 
able for their size and the solidity of their construction. 
Nearly all of them were on a level with the soil, and their 
height was greater than that of the other buildings. There 
were no lateral openings to be seen, and it is probable that,, 
as in the Pintado Pueblo, the entrance was from a hole in 
the roof. Most of these estufas are completely in ruins, and 
their site alone is marked by a pile of earth and stones. 
Those few still standing prove the intelligence of the 
architects and the skill of the workmen. In some pueblos 
the estufas are strengthened with buttresses ; in the 
Hungo-Pavie Pueblo, for instance, the estufa is flanked 
by six buttresses, forming regular pillars ; and, in the 
Pueblo Pintado, there are four very similar ones. Instan- 
ces of this peculiarity might be multiplied. 

Every discovery confirms the importance of these estufas. 



1 " "Les premiers Hommes et les Temps pre-historiques," vol. I., p. 414. 



THE CLIFF DWELLERS. 



233 



We have noticed them in the cliff-houses, we find them again 
in the pueblos, and to this day they are to be seen amongst 
the Moqui Indians, where they consist of square rooms used 
as workshops for weaving. The Moquis, both male and fe- 
male, assemble in them to avoid the great heat of the day, 
or, according to more credible accounts, to practise their 
mysterious rites. This constant presence of the estufa is 
another point of comparison which must not be forgotten. 

In the course of his researches Jackson discovered outside 
the enclosure of the pueblos, on the east, some little struc- 
tures raised on a bank of stones forming the lower stratum 
of the rock. The calcareous bed had indeed been length- 
ened by a layer of masonry, formed of large and small stones 
arranged alternately. Yet farther off was another more im- 
portant mass of ruins covering an area of 163 feet by 73, and 
including two estufas. All appearances pointed to the con- 
clusion that these ruins were connected with the Bonito 
Pueblo. 

Time doubtless failed the explorers for the excavation of 
the two heaps of cinders on the south of the pueblo ; but it 
is very certain that these middens would have yielded many 
objects which would have made us better acquainted with 
the ancient inhabitants of the pueblo. 

Amongst the other pueblos discovered we must mention 
that of Una Vida, the estufa of which is the largest hitherto 
found, its diameter exceeding sixty feet ; the Pintado Pueblo, 
already referred to more than once ; the Weje-Gi Pueblo; 
the Pefiasca-Blanca Pueblo, of elliptical form, with an in- 
ternal court measuring 364 feet by 269, the largest of any 
after the Bonito Pueblo, the buildings covering altogether 
an area of 499 feet by 363 ; and the Arroyo Pueblo, in which 
three stories can be made out, with floors of interlaced wil- 
low branches covered with beaten earth. Near these large 
pueblos were several other very small ones. That marked 9 
in the plans drawn by Jackson is only seventy-eight feet by 
sixty-three ; yet it has two estufas and some twenty rooms. 
A detailed description of these pueblos would involve us in 



234 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA, 



constant repetition. Everywhere we meet with the same 
class of structures with their remarkable regularity, their 
walls of stones or adobes, and their estufas overlooking the 
rest of the buildings. We must add, however, that the 
Pueblo Alto, which can scarcely be seen from the valley, is 
situated, like the cliff-houses, at the top of a hill of consider- 
able height. It is reached by a flight of twenty-eight steps 
roughly cut in the rock, and on either side holes can be made 
out, in which the hands could be placed to facilitate the 
ascent. Arrived at the Mesa we find ourselves opposite a 
building forming a parallelogram, presenting every appear- 
ance of great antiquity, and probably much older than any 
of the structures in the valley. Close by we see a huge heap 
of rubbish of all kinds, chiefly fragments of pottery. This 
heap has been measured by American engineers, who esti- 
mate its contents at 25,000 cubic feet. We can but repeat 
our regrets that the explorers could not undertake any ex- 
cavations, which would doubtless have aided in the elucida- 
tion of the problems we have stated. 

The traveller is well rewarded for the fatigue of the ascent 
of the Pueblo Alto. Beneath his feet he sees the ruins 
rising from every part of the Chaco Canon, while beyond 
stretches a vast panorama ; on the north the basin of the 
San Juan and the La Plata chain ; on the east the Sierra 
Tunecha ; on the south the snowy crest of the Sierra San 
Mateo ; on the west the Jemez Mountains, overlooked by the 
Pelado with its eternal snows. All else is changed, nature 
alone has remained immovable, and the man of the 19th 
century enjoys the same view, alike imposing and attractive, 
which must have charmed the ancient inhabitants of the 
pueblo. 

At the Chettro-Kettle Pueblo, General Simpson, during 
his first exploration, was able to examine a chamber still in 
a remarkable state of preservation. 1 We cannot do better 
than quote the description he gives, which proves that the 



1 "Journal of Lieutenant James A. Simpson in the Report of the Secretary 
of War" ; 31st. Congress, 1st Session. (Senate) Ex. Doc. No. 64, pp. 79, 80. 



THE CLIFF DWELLERS. 



235 



men of old, buried though they were in regions so difficult 
of approach, knew how to build their home with as much 
art as the people whom we have been in the habit of look- 
ing upon as the initiators of civilization. 

"This room," says General Simpson, "is fourteen feet 
wide by seventeen and a half feet long, and ten feet in 
elevation. It has an outside door-way three and a half 
feet high by two and a quarter wide, and one at its west 
end, leading into the adjoining room, two feet wide, and 
at present, on account of rubbish, only two and a half 
feet high. The stone walls still have their plaster upon 
them, in a tolerable state of preservation. On the south 
wall is a recess or niche three feet two inches high by four 
feet five inches wide and four feet deep. Its position and 
size naturally suggested the idea that it might have been a 
fireplace ; but if so, the smoke must have returned to the 
room, as there was no chimney outlet for it. In addition to 
this large recess, there were three smaller ones in the same 
wall. The ceiling showed two main beams, laid trans- 
versely ; on these longitudinally were a number of smaller 
ones in juxtaposition ; the ends being tied together by a 
species of wooden fibre, and the interstices chinked in with 
small stones. On these again transversely, in close contact, 
was a kind of lathing of the odor and appearance of cedar, 
all in a good state of preservation." Jackson, who visited 
these ruins twenty-eight years later than General Simpson-, 
did not find this room north-west of the main building, 1 but 
he mentions others no less curious, which were reached by 
holes made in the masonry, the first story alone having a 
series of little windows. The walls of the Chettro-Kettle 
Pueblo measured 935 feet long by forty high, and contained 
315,000 cubic feet of masonry. When we remember that 
each stone making up this sum total had to be hewn from 
the quarry, carried a considerable distance, dressed and set 
in its place ; further that the posts had to be brought from 
a long way off and the openings to be made, it is difficult 

1 " Ruins of S. W. Colorado in 1875 and 1877," p. 439. 



236 



PRE-HIST0R1C AMERICA. 



to avoid concluding that a great number of workmen, di- 
rected by skilful architects, must have been employed on 
this building, which at least in the art of masonry, marks an 
advanced stage of culture. 

The same remarks apply with equal force to a pueblo on 
the banks of the Las Animas River, which flows into the 
San Juan about sixty miles from the Chaco Canon. This 
pueblo has been visited by the Hon. L. H. Morgan, and de- 
scribed by him with scrupulous fidelity. 1 The chief build- 
ing, 368 feet, and its two wings, 270 feet long, are higher than 
any others yet discovered. They contained five, perhaps 
even six, stories, and seventy rooms or cells on each story. 
The walls, never less than two feet, are here and there three 
feet six inches thick. Some of the rooms communicate 
with each other by trap-doors ; others have two doors and 
four lateral openings, small enough, it is true, but at least 
admitting air and light, luxuries nearly unknown amongst 
these people. There too we find estufas ; there are two in 
the principal structure, a third in a building annexed to it, 
and a fourth, sixty-three feet and a half in diameter, rises 
in the centre of the court. 

There are other pueblos, nearly as large, in the valley of 
Las Animas, but Morgan estimates its population at only 
five thousand at a time when all the pueblos were inhabited.. 

At the other end of New Mexico there are ruins no less re- 
markable, 2 and there is so great a resemblance between them 
and those we have been describing that it is impossible not. 
to attribute them to the same races and the same period. 
These pueblos are scattered over the whole of that part of 
the valley of the Rio Grande bounded on the north by the 
Rio de las Frijoles, on the south by the San Domingo, on 
the east by the plateau stretching away to Santa Fe. 

We choose from among these ruins those in the valley of 
the Rio Pecos, a little river flowing into the Rio Grande, in 

1 " On the Ruins of a Stone Pueblo on the Animas River in New Mex- 
ico." Am. Assoc. St.Louis, 1877. "Report, Peabody Museum," vol. II., p. 536. 

2 A. F. Bandelier : " Report on the Ruins of the Pueblo of Pecos." Arch. In- 
stitute of America," Boston, 1881. 



THE CLIFF DWELLERS. 



237 



the neighborhood of which are found rich placetas, as the 
Spanish called mines containing precious metals, and cerillos, 
in which blue and green turquoises are still found. Bande- 
lier has recently visited the Rio Pecos valley, which is from 
twenty to twenty-five miles long by six to eight wide, and is 
situated at a height of six thousand three hundred and forty- 
six feet. 1 We cannot do better than follow his description 
of the chief buildings, supplementing it. however, from other 
sources, and will retain the initials A and B, by which he 
designates two groups, the name and history of which are 
both completely unknown. 

The Pueblo B rises on a mesa overlooking the Rio Pecos. 
Its foundations rest on siliceous rock, and the arrangements 
of the building vary according to the sinuosities or asperities 
of the site, so that they are far from presenting that regu- 
larity which strikes us so forcibly in the pueblos of the Chaco 
or of the MacElmo. The building is four hundred and 
forty feet long by sixty-three at its widest portion. It has 
no lateral wings, no internal court, and for the first time we 
find no estufa. As many as five hundred and seven cells 
have been counted, separated by very thin division walls. 
The largest measure nine feet by sixteen, the smallest seven 
feet by nine. Bandelier estimates their height at seven feet 
and a half, and if his calculation be correct the total height 
of the building would be thirty-six feet. How could such a 
tiny place be the home of a human being? 2 

Very different layers can be made out in the masonry ; 
some are of gray or red schistous sandstone, others' of a 
conglomerate formed of a quantity of stones varying in size 
from that of a pea to that of a nut. One part only, consid- 
ered the most recent, is of adobes of considerable size, measur- 
ing eleven inches by six. The inside surface of the masonry 

1 Emory: "Notes of a Military Reconnoisance from Fort Leavenworth 
in Kansas to San Diego in California." Washington, 1848. 

2 Castaiieda de Nagera : "Relation du Voy. de Cibola." Juan Jaravillo ; 
" App. VI., Ternaux Compans," series I., vol. IX. G. Castaiio de la Cosa : 
41 Memoria del Descubrimiento que — hizo en el Nuevo Mexico," Mexico, 
1590 ; Doc. ined. de los Archivos de Indias, vol. XV., p. 244. 



238 



PRE- HIS TORIC A M ERICA . 



is covered with a very carefully spread white coating, the 
constituents of which could not be determined, and the walls 
are strengthened with posts of cedar or pine wood imbedded 
in the masonry in their natural state, only the bark having 
been removed. Other posts served as supports to the floor, 
consisting of brushwood, chips of wood, and a thick coating 
of moistened clay, this arrangement being the same as that 
described above. No trace has been found of side-doors or 
staircases ; the different stories, which are placed one behind 
the other, were reached by trap-doors. Castaneda, speaking 
of one of the earliest of the expeditions of the Spanish, that 
of 1540, in which he took part, relates that the roof of the 
houses formed terraces, by which the inhabitants passed 
from one to the other. Such doubtless had also been their 
mode of communication. We may add that it is the plan 
still in use amongst the Indians of Zuni, Moqui, Acoma, and 
Taos ; no change has taken place in these secular customs. 

In one of the rooms some cinders and fragments of char- 
coal have been picked up, sole traces of the domestic hearth. 
It was impossible to ascertain what method was employed 
to ensure the escape of the smoke, but this was probably 
because of the state of dilapidation in which the building 
was found, as General Simpson describes a hole for the 
escape of the smoke exactly above the hearth in the San 
Domingo Pueblo. 

Pueblo A. is situated on the north of Pueblo B. It in- 
cludes several buildings surrounding a court. The height of 
these buildings must have varied very much ; that on the 
east was five, that on the north two, and that on the south four 
stories high. 1 Bandelier gives the size of the court as two 
hundred and ten feet by sixty-three. The perimeter of the 
whole is one thousand one hundred and ninety feet, and as 
many as five hundred and eighty-five rooms have been 
counted. This pueblo is the largest hitherto discovered. 
Its construction differs in no respect from that of those 
already described ; no staircase, window, or hearth is to be 



1 Bandelier, /. c, p. 78. 



THE CLIFF DWELLERS. 



239 



seen, and three little estufas recall the usual customs of the 
people under notice. Mr. E. Lee Childe, in a recent publica- 
tion {Correspondent, 10th Nov., 1881), describes an Indian 
village of New Mexico which he had just visited. " Before 
us," he says, " on the right and the left, are two rows of these 
adobe habitations, low, with no openings outward, no doors, 
no staircases. The flat terraced roofs are reached by a mov- 
able outside ladder. All the windows and doors open on to 
an inside court, which can only be reached by going down 
another ladder. Each house is thus a kind of little fort, into 
which, the ladder once withdrawn, neither man nor beast 
can penetrate. This tribe forms part of the Pueblo Indians, 
who have adopted agricultural customs, cultivating the 
ground and breeding cattle." Does not this read like a 
description of the ancient dwellings we are endeavoring to 
make known ? 

Round about the pueblos and inside the different cells 
have been picked up innumerable fragments of pottery, 
arrow-points, chips of obsidian, black lava, agates, jasper, 
quartz, stone axes and hammers, and copper rings. Among 
these objects we must mention especially two little earthen- 
ware figures, very like the idols of the Mexicans. Thus far 
this is the only fact that throws any light on the religion of 
the inhabitants of the pueblos. 1 

This habitation in common, these cells all exactly resem- 
bling one another, with the absence of any larger residence, 
point to the conclusion that the men of the pueblos led a 
communal existence. 2 " The next morning," says a recent 

1 The researches of Mr. Frank Cushing at the Zuhi Pueblo will doubtless 
throw a flood of light on the whole subject. The few preliminary words which 
have appeared in the Century Magazine and elsewhere promise the most inter- 
esting results. Mr. Cushing is now (1884) about to prepare his final report. 
Ant. de Espejo : " El Viaje que hizo en el anno de ochenta y tres." Hakluyt, 
" Voyages," vol. III. If we accept Coronado's account Pecos was already in 
ruins in 1540. Later, under the direction of the Franciscans, the pueblo was re- 
built, a church and convent erected, and in 1680 the population exceeded 2,000. 
Vetancurt : " Cronica," p. 300. Bandelier, /. c, p. 120 et seq. 

2 Bandelier, /. c, pp. 54, 60, 89, et seq. Force, Cong, des Am., Luxem- 
bourg, 1877, p. 16. 



240 



PRE-HI S 7 y QKlC AMERICA. 



traveller, " I was waked at dawn by a strange chant. Hav- 
ing at once drawn aside the curtains of the ambulance, I 
dimly made out the profile of the chief, who was standing at 
the summit of the pueblo. When he had finished chanting, 
he gave out a proclamation. He had scarcely finished when 
I saw figures moving rapidly. It was explained to me that 
the chant of the chief was an act of adoration, and the object 
of the proclamation was to make known what was to be the 
task of the different families made up of the five hundred 
persons living in the pueblo." The present may help us to 
understand the past. They were certainly an agricultural 
race, for every sedentary population must be so from mere 
force of circumstances. Moreover, near the Rio Pecos culti- 
vated fields have been made out, and irrigative works of 
considerable extent, including acequias or large canals, and 
zanjas or irrigating ditches. This was doubtless the Huerta 
del pueblo, the garden cultivated by all in common. In many 
places the outlines have been traced of fields in which maize 
was cultivated, and these fields are remarkable for the 
luxuriant growth of a robust variety of sun-flower. The 
common property was under the same kind of government 
as that generally adopted in Mexico before the Spanish Con- 
quest. The land, the property of all, was divided every year 
amongst the different families forming the tribe, who were 
probably very closely related to each other. But each 
family had a right to the produce of the toil of its members ; 
they reaped the seed they sowed, they gathered the fruits 
they planted. These assertions seem to be well founded ; 
for according to Mariano Ruiz, who lived for a long time 
amongst the Pecos Indians, this mode of cultivation was till 
recently practised by them ; in fact it lasted until the extinc- 
tion of the tribe, and to quote their own words: " La tierras 
son del pueblo, pero cada uno piede vender sus cosechas." 

The Cliff Dwellers and inhabitants of the pueblos have 
left behind them as many fragments of pottery as the Mound 
Builders. Jackson tells us that all who have visited these 
regions have been strongly impressed by the fragments of 



THE CLIFF DWELLERS. 



241 



pottery everywhere strewing their path, and that even in 
parts where no vestige of human habitation has been found. 
The pottery was doubtless of a kind to enable it to last 
longer than the adobes, which have crumbled to dust. Ban- 
delier, again, in speaking of the ruins of the Rio Pecos, says 
that wagon-loads of painted pottery lie at the feet of the tra- 
veller ; and Schoolcraft 1 speaks of the profusion of fragments 
of pottery left behind them by the ancient tribes who lived 
on the banks of the Rio Gila, as proofs of their long resi- 
dence there. Holmes is even more explicit, and, according 
to him, the number of these fragments is quite confusing. 




Fig. 104. — Vases found on the banks of the San Juan. 

On a surface, roughly estimated at ten feet square, he was able 
to pick up fragments belonging to fifty-five different vases, 
jars or amphorae, dishes or bottles. All explorations lead 
to the same results, and everywhere the heaps of frag- 
ments of all kinds are of much greater importance than those 
found at the present day near villages occupied by seden- 
tary Indians. To explain this, recourse has been had to a 
strange supposition. It has been said that the inhabitants 
of the country, forced to flee before a sudden invasion, had 
broken their crockery before leaving their hearths forever — 
either under the influence of a superstitious horror, or to 



1 "Archives of Aboriginal Knowledge," vol. III., p. 83. 



-4 2 P RE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 

prevent their property becoming the booty of a hated 
enemy. 

What is more certain is, that the pieces of pot- 
tery found on the surface of the ground show no signs 
of deterioration, although they have been subjected 
for centuries to all the inclemencies of the seasons. 
Generally, the earthenware of the Cliff Dwellers is far 
superior to that of the Mound Builders (fig. 104) ; it 
was made of a fine clay, very plentiful in the neighbor- 
hood of the homes of the Cliff Dwellers, and, to give it con- 




r «s r 

FlG. 105. — Funeral urn found in Utah. 

sistency, this clay was mixed with a small quantity of sand, 
bits of shell, or even with pellets of earth moulded and 
baked. Often after kneading his clay, the potter cut it into 
thin strips, which he laid one upon the other, giving them 
the form required with his hand. This is the mode still em- 
ployed in the glass-works of Europe in making crucibles and 
'other things requiring delicate workmanship. We give a 
figure (fig. 105) of a jar, or funeral urn, found in Utah, near 
a structure of adobes now completely in ruins. 1 This illus- 
tration will help us to understand the details of the manu- 



1 This jar belongs to the Peabody Museum, and is capable of holding three, 
gallons ; another, found near Epsom Creek, holds no less than ten gallons. 



THE CLIFF DWELLERS. 



243 



facture. All the pieces of pottery found had been subjected 
to the heat of fire ; and, although that heat had never been 
great enough to change the original color of the clay, the 
baking had made them so hard that, when struck, they give 
out a very clear metallic sound. Lightness was evidently a 
quality much esteemed ; the internal and external surfaces 
were carefully smoothed before baking, and the workman 
often succeeded in making the body of the largest pots no 
thicker than a quarter of an inch. A great many of these 
pots retain traces of paintings, and several have been coated 
with a varnish converted by baking into a brilliant polish, 
worthy to be compared with that of our modern enamelled 
manufactures. Beneath some sepulchral mounds near the 
Great Salt Lake have been found some pieces of pottery, in- 
ferior in execution to those of Ohio and Mississippi, which 
still retain this polish. These jars contained burnt human 
bones, yet another proof of the practice of cremation at cer- 
tain periods by certain races. 1 

The varnish was generally black, blue, or brown, more 
rarely red or white. We do not know what were its constitu- 
ents ; they varied probably according to the locality. We 
know for instance that the Spanish found some vases in the 
pueblos that were full of varnish ready for use, 2 and at the 
present day the people of Guatemala use a resinous gum to 
coat the surface of their pottery when they take it from the 
fire. 3 A vase is mentioned found at Ojo Calienta, New 
Mexico, still covered with a very fine powder of mica ; 
so that this may have been yet another mode employed. 

The decoration of the vases is generally executed with 
great precision ; the ornaments stand out from the surface 
either in relief or in a different color. 4 Some, for instance, 
are black on a red or white ground. A few of the fragments 
picked up are of a bronze color, but it is impossible to say 

1 Bancroft : Loc. cit., vol. IV., p. 714. 

2 " Castaneda de Nagera : " Rel. du Voyage de Cibola," Ternaux Compans, 
vol. IV., first series. 

8 Bancroft : /. c, vol. I., p. 398. 

4 Ch. Rau : " Indian Pottery," " Smith. Con.," i860, vol. XVI. 



244 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



by what processes this color was obtained. 1 Fragments have 
also often been found on which lines and geometrical draw- 
ings have been traced, as among the Mound Builders, with a 
pointed instrument or with the nail of the potter ; other 
vases have more complicated designs, which by a very 
remarkable coincidence resemble to a positively confusing 
degree those of the Etruscans (figs. 104 and 106). The draw- 
ings on the pottery of Arizona resemble the ornaments 
traced on the walls of the temple of Mitla, which again re- 
call the processes used in ornamentation by the ancient 
people of Italy. 2 




Fig. 106. — Fragments of pottery. 

Other pieces of pottery are covered with representations 
of human figures and of animals. A fragment is mentioned 
as having been found on the banks of the Gila on which an 
unknown artist had engraved a turtle ; another was supposed 
to represent the head of a monkey. Birds are numerous, 
and while the Mound Builders appear to have preferred the 
duck as a model the Cliff Dwellers generally chose the owl 

1 Putnam : Bull of the Essex Institute, 1880. 

2 Hoffman : " Ethn. Obs. on Indians Inhabiting Nevada, California, and 
Arizona," U. S. Geol. Survey, 1S76, p. 454. The modern pueblo pottery, 
which is produced in enormous quantities, begins to show evidences of the influ- 
ence of civilization and of modification for an archaeological market. Collec- 
tors should be on their guard against pots with the " Swastika" on them, or 
other equally remarkable designs, which are now, it appears, manufactured to 
order. Cf. Putnam : " Peabody Museum Report," for 1882. 



THE CLIFF DWELLERS. 



245 



or the parrot. To sum up : if the pottery of the Cliff 
Dwellers is superior to that found in the mounds it still more 
excels that now manufactured by the potters of the Rio 
Grande or of the San Juan. The Moqui and Zuni Indians 
know very well how to make pottery, and to produce the 
symmetrical forms or artistic ornamentation characteristic 
of the ceramic work of their predecessors inhabitants of the 
pueblos. 

A few implements of quartz or other rock of various kinds 
are, w T ith the pottery just noticed, nearly the sole relics of 
this ancient civilization which have come down to us. 
Arrow-points are often found at the foot of the cliff-houses 
and round about the pueblos. They bear witness, as we 
have already remarked, to the constant struggle in which 
the men under notice passed their lives, compelled to be 
always defending their homes. Near the Rio Mancos has 
been found a polished celt exactly similar to those of Eu- 
rope. 1 This celt was eight inches long by two and a half at 
its widest part. One side is slightly concave, the other per- 
fectly flat. It was hidden in one of the cells of a cliff-house 
under a heap of maize. A polished scraper of silicious schist 
has also turned up, which may have been used to prepare 
skins, schist being too brittle to be used either for drilling 
or hammering purposes. 

A good many metates or stone hand-mills for grinding 
corn have also been found. These consist of blocks of 
basalt, naturally concave or artificially rendered so, upon 
which another stone was pushed backward and forward, 
which fact supplies us with another proof that the Cliff 
Dwellers were an essentially agricultural people, living on 
the produce of the fields they tilled. These metates are at 
present in common use on the borders of Mexico, both by 
Indians and by the not much more civilized " greasers." It 
is a curious fact that these people often obtain their metates, 
here, as in Yucatan, from the ancient pueblos or mounds. 

Lastly, a mat made of rushes may be referred to, of a 

1 Holmes : U. S. Geog. Survey, pi. XLVI. 



246 



PRE- HIS TOPIC A ME RICA . 



variety {Scirpus valictus) still very common on the banks of 
the Mancos. Some ropes woven of the fibres of the yucca, 
some sea-shells, a few amulets in stone or turquoise, a few 
bead necklaces, and our list is closed. We have alluded to 
the very small number of excavations hitherto undertaken, 
and the obstacles which checked the explorers, zealous as 
they were in the cause of science ; and it will readily be be- 
lieved that very few of the objects left on the surface of the 
ground were likely to escape the rapacity of the Utes and 
Navajos, who are always wandering about amongst the ruins. 

It is remarkable that, except for the copper rings found 
at Pecos, not a weapon or ornament of metal has been found. 1 
Were such articles carried off by the Indians, or were the 
early inhabitants of the pueblos' of New Mexico and Colorado 
ignorant of iron and bronze ? This latter hypothesis seems 
probable, for the roughly squared beams supporting their 
home appear to have been shaped with stone implements. 
We cannot pronounce a decided opinion on the question, for 
it can only be decided by scientifically conducted excavations. 

Among the most remarkable characteristics of the archae- 
ology of the region are the paintings, sculptures, and 
engravings on rocks, met with in New Mexico, Arizona, Col- 
orado, and even in Texas. Among others which may be 
cited are those of the Sierra -Waco, thirty miles from El Paso. 

These rock-drawings have caused the coinage of a new 
word, pictography, which we use in our turn, although we are 
by no means persuaded, as are certain archaeologists, that the 
Cliff Dwellers intended by means of pictography to give a 
record of their own. history, the struggles in which they had 
taken part, their migrations or their haunts. The figures 
are, as a rule, of such great simplicity that the descendants of 
the artists could learn nothing from them of the main facts 
of the history of their ancestors. It is more probable that 
these figures, curious though they be, were generally the 
outcome of the painter's or sculptor's fancy. 

1<l The implements and ornaments are not numerous, include no articles of 
any- metal whatever, and do not differ materially from the articles now in use 
among the Pueblo Indians." — Bancroft, /. c, vol IV., p. 677. 



THE CLIFF DWELLERS. 



247 



It is not only on the rocks that we find the representations 
under notice ; the numerous erratic blocks of the valley of 
the Gila are covered with roughly outlined figures of men 
and of animals 1 (fig. 1 07). But it is chiefly on the banks of 
the Mancos and the San Juan, and in the canons stretching 




Fig. 107. — Erratic blocks covered with figures. Arizona. 

away westward, that these pictographs abound. Some are 
cut into the rock to a depth varying from a quarter to half 
an inch 2 (figs 108 and 109); others are merely traced in 
broad red or white lines. The former, in many cases at an 



1 Bartlett : " Personal Narrative," vol. II., pp. 195, 206. 

2 Holmes: pis. XLII. and XLIII. 



248 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



all but inaccessible height, must have involved considerable 
toil. Are they the work of the Cliff Dwellers ? Nearly every 
thing points to the conclusion that they are, for they are 
almost all near the cliff-houses. We must add, however, 
that inscriptions and figures are, on the other hand, very rare 
near the most ancient pueblos ; and the most recent are 
often, perhaps, of later date than the Spanish Conquest. 
The appearance of these inscriptions might have warranted 
us in attributing them to pre-historic Cliff Dwellers, had not 
one of them represented a horse, 1 and we know that this 
animal was unknown in America before the arrival of the 
conquerors. 

We must also notice a figure resembling rudely a hatchet 
(fig. 109), met with repeatedly in these engravings. Its form 
recalls the hatchets engraved on the megalithic monuments 
of Brittany. This is a curious fact, but its importance must 
not be overrated. 

Among the most interesting of the engravings on rock 
we will mention one on the banks of the San Juan, about 
ten miles from the mouth of the La Plata. It represents a 
long series of men, animals, and even birds with long necks 
and long legs, all going in the same direction. 2 Two men 
are standing up in a sledge harnessing a deer which may be 
supposed to be a reindeer, and other men follow or direct 
the march. These engravings are evidently connected with 
the migration of a tribe. 

Jackson also speaks of a cliff near the MacElmo covered 
for an area of sixty square feet with figures of men, stags 
and lizards, and Bandelier speaks of pictographs 3 the weather- 
worn condition of which testifies to their antiquity. The 
latter, situated near the Pecos ruins, represent the footprints, 
of a man or child, a human figure and a very complete cir- 
cle enclosing some small cups which may also be compared 
with those on the megalithic stones of France. On the 

1 Holmes : pi. XLII. , fig. 2. 

2 Holmes: pi, XLIIT., fig. 1. 

n ." Ruins of the Rio Pecos," pp. 92, et seq. 



THE CLIFF DWELLERS. 



249. 



banks of the Puerco and Zuni rivers, 1 two of the tributaries 
of the Colorado Chiquito, drawings have been noticed 2 which 
resemble hieroglyphics. Their meaning is unknown, indeed 
we cannot even assert that they have any meaning. 

The rocks surrounding Salt Lake City, Utah, the capital 
city of the Territory, are covered with sculptures which re- 
mind us of those of Egypt. 3 Some of the human figures of 



life size, incised in very hard blue granite, are situated 
more than thirty feet above the level of the ground. The 
height at which some of these sculptures occur has suggested 
that since their production some geological phenomenon, 
such as the depression of the lake, may have taken place. 

1 It was on the banks of the Zuni that Coronado speaks of having seen the 
seven villages of Cibola in 1540. 

2 Mulhaiisen : " Tagebuch einer Reise vom Mississippi nach den Kusten der 
Sud-See." Leipsic, 1858. 

3 Remy and Brenchley : "A Journey to the Great Salt Lake City." London, 
1862, vol. II., p. 362. 




Fig. 108. — Pictography on the banks of the San Juan. 




Fig. 109. — Pictographs on the banks of the San Juan. 



250 PRE-HIST0R1C AMERICA. 

This is yet another hypothesis to add to the many already 
noticed. 

The desire to reproduce the figures, animals, and events 
which have arrested their attention is one of the most char- 
acteristic features of the various American races. On the 
rocks of Ohio and Wyoming signs have been noticed which 
have been looked upon as hieroglyphics. 1 Amongst these 
engravings one of the most important is in Licking county; 
it covers a surface from fifty to sixty feet long, by from ten 
to twelve feet wide. Unfortunately nearly all the figures 
have been destroyed, only a few slight traces still remaining. 
We may also mention those of Perrysburgand Independence, 
Cuyahoga county, and those of Belmont county. If these 
really are inscriptions it is impossible now to decipher them, 
but there is little probability of their being more than rude 
pictographs. Here and there beside these signs we see en 
graved a trident, an harpoon, a bear's foot or a human hand 
or foot, several of which are mentioned as cut into the rock 
to the depth of an inch and a half. 

In Vermont, too, the rocks bathed by the Connecticut 
River are covered with engravings. On one of them a hu- 
man figure can be made out, on another twenty heads of 
different sizes, the largest being twenty inches long and the 
smallest five inches. 2 Several of them have two rays, two 
horns if you like, on the forehead, and the central figure has 
as many as six. The eyes and the mouth are indicated by 
circular holes, and the nose is nearly always missing. An 
engraving at Brattleboro is still more curious ; it represents 
eleven different subjects, including mammals, birds, and ser- 
pents. 

Some similar pictographs, to which authorities are dis- 
posed to assign a very great antiquity, are to be seen on the 
walls of caves in Nicaragua. 3 One is mentioned near Nihapa 

1 Whittlesey : "Rep. Am. Ass.," Indianapolis, 1S71. Th. Comstock, same, 
Detroit, 1875. 

a G. W. Perkins : ' ' Remarks upon the Arch, of Vermont, " ' ' Rep. Am. Ass. , " 
St. Louis, 1878. 

3 " Report, Peabody Museum," 1880, vol. II., p. 716. 



THE CLIFF DWELLERS. 



251 



representing a serpent covered with feathers. The artist 
gave imagination full scope. Some caves in the mountains 
of the province of Oajaca also show man's handiwork. 1 But 
here we only find clumsy paintings in red ochre. Amongst 
these can be distinguished impressions of the hand in black, 
recalling those noticed by Stephens on the ruined walls of 
the buildings of Uxmal. Pinart, in his journey across Sonora, 2 
met with a great many inscriptions on rocks. He describes 
one engraved on the three faces of a basaltic rock near the 
Rio de Busanig. Although they are much defaced, we can 
still make out on the northern face a human hand, beneath 
two concentric circles grouped round a central point. The 
upper part also bears a number of little round holes ar- 
ranged symmetrically, and on a second rock rising above the 
first several other circles have been traced. 

Near Cahorca rises a rocky circular hillock to which the 
Papagos have given the name of Ko Ka. It consists of a 
heap of rocks bearing pictographs on their flat surfaces. In 
several places more ancient designs, including a series of 
lines or of symmetrical figures, can be distinguished, but 
they have been in a great measure obliterated by later in- 
scriptions traced in white paint. 

Such engravings or paintings are met with in all the re- 
gions which once formed Spanish America. They are men- 
tioned as existing near the extinct volcano of Masaya, in 
the United States of Colombia ; on the banks of the Orinoco, 
in Venezuela, where they are in such a state of decay that 
they can hardly be recognized ; on the Isthmus of Panama, 
where they were noticed as early as 1520 by the Spaniards. 3 
Lieutenant Whipple describes them on the rocks of Arizona. 
Professor Kerr on the Black Mountains near the sources of 
the Tennessee ; and in crossing the White Mountains, between 
the towns of Columbus, Nevada, and Benton, California, we 
meet with numerous representations of men and animals, or 

1 Brasseur de Bourbourg : " Voy. sur l'lsthme de Tehuantepec," p. 123. 

2 "Bull. Soc. Geog." Paris, Sept., 1S80. 

3 Diego Garcia de Palacios : " Carta dirigada al Rey de Espafia," afio 1576. 



254 



P RE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



with signs that cannot be deciphered. 1 Neither the Pah 
Utes, occupying the California seaboard, nor the Shawnees, 
who encamp near Columbus, claim them as the work of their 
ancestors. Twenty miles south of Benton, the road follows 
a narrow defile ', shut in on either side by almost perpendicular 
rocks, rising to a height of forty or fifty feet. These stone 
walls are covered with figures G f unknown origin. 

The ancient inhabitants of Tennessee have also left behind 
them paintings on the cliffs overlooking their great rivers. 
Some represent the sun and the moon ; others, mammals, the 
bison for instance. 2 These paintings were done in red ochre, 
and, like the sculptures of Utah referred to above, they are 
at almost inaccessible heights. A colossal sun, engraved on 
a rock overlooking the Big Harpeth, is visible four miles off. 
At Buffalo Creek these workmen of the past have drawn an 
entire herd of bisons, walking in single file. Father Mar- 
quette, during his voyage up the Mississippi, saw similar 
scenes engraved on the cliffs between Illinois and the Mis- 
souri ; and more modern travellers bear witness to the faith- 
fulness of his account. 3 

In speaking of South America we shall describe rock sculp- 
tures, similar to those first noticed ; but with regard to them 
we shall also be unable to say who executed them or when 
they were made. The only conclusion which we can arrive at 
is that resemblances exist between the instincts of man in 
all regions. Everywhere man, however degraded we may 
consider him to have been, traced as with childish vanity, 
upon the rocks, on the walls of caves, and on erratic blocks, 
his own image or the scenes taking place before his eyes, and 
from this point of view nothing could be more curious than 
a comparison between the rude figures of the Americans 
and the engravings executed by the Bushmen of South Af- 

1 Hoffman : " Ethn. Observ. on Indians Inhabiting Nevada, California, and 
Arizona," U. S. Geol. and Geog. Survey, 1876. 

8 Jones' " Antiquities of the Southern Indians," New York, 1873, p. 137. 

3 " Voyages et Decouvertes du P. Marquette dans 1' Amerique Septentrionale." 
Thevenot : " Relation de Divers Voyages Curieux, " Paris, 168 1. J. G. Shea, 
" Discovery and Explorations of the Mississippi Valley," p. 41. 



THE CLIFF DWELLERS. 



255 



rica, (fig. no), or with those engraved on the rocks of Al- 
geria. This similarity, in every clime and at every period, of 
the taste, instinct, and genius of man is the best proof that 
can be brought forward of the common origin of the human 
race. 

As already stated it appears certain that the Cliff Dwellers 
and the inhabitants of the pueblos belonged to the same 
race, and that this did not materially differ from the Moquis 
and Zufiis,of the present day. The buildings, whether of 
stone or of adobe, are always alike and always regular ; the 
rooms are everywhere extremely small ; the absence of stairs 
and of trap-doors giving access from one story to another, 
points to a life led in common ; and everywhere we find estufas, 
places for meetings alike of a religious and secular character. 
Both the Cliff Dwellers and the people of the pueblos manu- 
factured pottery of a similar kind, and used the same kind 
of arrow-points and the same kind of implements. 

All the relics which have come down to us point to the 
same conclusion, and it appears no less certain that the peo- 
ple under notice differed in many respects from the Mound 
Builders of Ohio and Mississippi, the Mayas of Yucatan and 
the Nahuas of Mexico. There are no structures left by the 
Cliff Dwellers resembling either the truncated pyramids, 
mounds shaped like animals, or other earth mounds of the 
Northern United States. In the Territory of Utah, however, 
Dr. Parry found a mound containing several specimens of 
pottery a good deal like that of the pueblos. Dr. Palmer, 
after many excavations in the neighborhood, confirmed this 
fact, but added that the mound in question was derived from 
crumbled walls, originally of adobes. 

Still less do they resemble the palaces, temples, and re- 
markable buildings erected by the Mayas or the Aztecs. 
The rarity of pipes, which are so numerous amongst the Mound 
Builders and northern Indians is no less remarkable. We 
give a drawing (fig. 112) of one of the few pipes found as 
yet in the district inhabited by the Cliff Dwellers. It is of 
clay, and the mouth-piece is at the end of the handle. 



256 



P RE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



Coronado, the first Spaniard to visit these regions, notices 
no resemblance between the Mexicans and the inhabitants 
of New Mexico. Father Escalante, who crossed the country 
in 1776, more than two centuries after Coronado, describes 
ruins now unknown, pueblos inhabited when he saw them, 
now crumbled to dust ; and nothing in his narrative supports 
what has been called on the other side of the Atlantic the 
Aztec theory. 1 As yet, nothing justifies us in deciding that 
New Mexico was peopled by colonists from Anahuac. Two 
distinct classes of remains appear to have been observed in 
-Central America ; the Cliff Dwellers on the west and the 
Mound Builders, who have been identified by some with the 
Aztecs, on the east. These people may have sprung origi- 
nally from the same source, but their separation doubtless 



Fig. 112. — Pipe found amongst the relics of the Cliff Dwellers. 

took place at a very distant period, and there is not sufficient 
evidence yet available to prove the case one way or the 
other. 2 

One thing is certain : numerous pueblos existed in New 
Mexico at the time of the Spanish invasion, and some of 
them, such as Zuni, Acoma, Taos, Jemez, and Pecos have 

1 Dominguez and Escalante : " Diario y Derrotero Santa Fe a Monterey," 
1776. "Doc. Hist. Mex.," 2d series, vol. I. Short, p. 331, speaks of having 
examined a MS. by Escalante in the Library of Congress, Washington, which 
confirms this conclusion. 

2 In the fifth report of the Archaeological Institute of America Bandelier gives 
an account of studies carried on in 1883 for the society in New Mexico and 
Arizona. He finds a well-defined system of growth, from the temporary Indian 
lodge to the many-storied pueblo building, which clearly does not owe its origin 
to anv external influences. He has since been seeking in the mountains of 
Northern Mexico traces of any possible connection between the ancient pueblo 
people and the Aztecs, and it is announced that his report of important studies 
at Cholula and Mitla is nearly ready for publication. 



E CLIFF DWELLERS. 



257 



been inhabi „ now. The pueblos of the sedentary 

Indians of New Mexico are grouped as follows : I., be- 
tween the frontier of Arizona and the Rio Grande, Zuni, 
Acoma, and Laguna; II., on the banks of the Rio Grande 
Taos. Picuries, Tehua. Oueres, Tiguas, and Piros ; III., to 
the west of the Rio Grande, Jemez ; and IV., to the east 
of the same river, Tanos and Pecos. 

Lieutenant Wheeler, who visited the country in 1858. 
speaks of having seen through his telescope two Moqui pueb- 
los, at a distance of eight or ten miles, perched on a rock 
overlooking the whole valley. The buildings were flush 
with the precipice, and from the Lieutenant's point of view 
presented the appearance of a town with walls and crenel- 
lated towers. The whole was singularly picturesque. Each 
of these pueblos is built round a rectangular court, enclos- 
ing the spring of water indispensable to the population. 
The walls, which are of stone, have no opening on the out- 
side. To reach the inside, these walls would have to be 
either removed or scaled. The different stories of the 
houses are one behind the other, and the upper ones can 
only be reached by means of trap-doors in the ceiling. 
Every building includes three stories, and has no opening 
except on to the court. The whole arrangement is such as 
to offer resistance in case of attack. As the court and the 
communications are common to all, the inhabitants must 
have led a communal existence, such as is known to be char- 
acteristic of all American tribes. 

We might well take this account as a description of an 
ancient pueblo, and it will help us to a second conclusion, 
which follows as a matter of course. New Mexico, Arizona, 
Utah. Colorado, and the northern part of Chihuahua, were 
formerly inhabited by a sedentary agricultural and compara- 
tively cultured race, who differed no more from each other 
than do the present inhabitants of the pueblos. The de- 
cline of these people probably began some time before the 
arrival of the Spaniards, and this decadence has gone on until 
the present day. when a few scattered settlements are the 



258 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



sole representatives of a once numerous and powerful popu- 
lation. 

The causes of this decadence are many. Among the 
most important we must certainly include the perpetually 
recurrent invasions of the Apaches, wild and dangerous ene- 
mies whom the Cliff Dwellers long and energetically resisted. 
At last, however, this resistance became powerless to stem 
the torrent, the people had to leave the homes they had 
built, the hearths often watered with their blood, perhaps to 
join themselves to other tribes at a distance, 1 who in their 
turn had to defend themselves, probably with no better suc- 
cess, against the attacks of the same enemies. 

The enemies gained ground daily, and daily the Cliff 
Dwellers receded before them. The end was inevitable. The 
vanquished race was rapidly reduced in power and number, 
and unfortunately the Spanish conquest could not restore it. 
It is probable, however, that the inroads of the nomad tribes, 
however formidable they may have been, would not have 
been enough to depopulate the country. The aerial dwell- 
ings, so difficult of access, the towers defending the en- 
trances to the valleys, the arrangement of the pueblos, form- 
ing as they did regular fortresses, would have secured the 
victory to their inhabitants, had not another cause, already 
referred to, hastened their ruin. The destruction of the for- 
ests, prolonged droughts, and the disappearance of water- 
courses changed lands which had been rendered productive by 
cultivation into arid deserts and valleys choked with sand, 
which strike the traveller of to-day as so melancholy. Man 
fled from regions where further struggle with an ungrateful 
nature had become impossible. He receded before an enemy 
more dangerous than the nomads, and against whom resis- 
tance was impossible. 

It was reserved to the nineteenth century to ascertain 

1 Examples of similar union of tribes are not rare in the history of the Indians. 
Since the discovery of America the vanquished Tuscaroras have been admitted 
into the confederation of the Five Nations ; the Alabamas, the Uchees, and 
Natchez into that of the Creeks ; and in our own day the Pecos, decimated by 
sickness, found an asylum amongst the people of an allied tribe. 



THE CLIFF DWELLERS. 2 59 

these facts, totally unknown a few years ago. A more noble 
mission is reserved to those who are to come after us. It is 
for science to reestablish that which the barbarism of man 
has been permitted to destroy, and by the resources of mod 
ern science to make the desert blossom as the rose. 



CHAPTER VI. 



THE PEOPLE OF CENTRAL AMERICA. 

AMERICA does not stint her surprises for those who study 
her ancient history. We have spoken of the mounds, so 
strange alike in form and construction, the dwellings, true 
eagle's nests, formed amid perpendicular cliffs, the pueblos, 
where a considerable population lived in common. We shall 
now consider a more advanced state of culture, monuments 
in ruins at the time of the Spanish invasion, temples, palaces, 
monoliths, statues, and bas-reliefs recalling in their complexity 
those of Egypt or Assyria, India or China. These monu- 
ments extend over entire districts, and the pioneers who. cut 
their way, axe in hand, through the all but impenetrable for- 
ests, flattering themselves that they w r ere the first to tread 
the virgin soil, found themselves face to face with ruins and 
sepulchres, incontestable proofs of the former presence of 
generations now disappeared. In stating these facts we shall 
incidentally confute the error of an eminent historian who 
did not hesitate to assert that there w T ere not throughout the 
whole of America any traces of a single building of earlier 
date than the fifteenth century. 

The difficulties we meet with at every turn increase as our 
account proceeds. Here too we are in the presence of name- 
less people, of races without a written history ; and to add 
to our difficulties new discoveries are daily made, upsetting 
preconceived hypotheses, breaking down earlier theories, and 
completely destroying what had appeared to be the best 
founded conclusions. 

The myths and traditions that have been collected may 
date back to a time before the Christian era, but the hiero- 

260 



THE PEOPLE OF CENTRAL AMERLCA. 



26l 



glyphics (fig. 113) are certainly not so old. It is difficult on 
such slight data to reconstruct a past culture, the very ex- 
istence of which was unknown a few years ago ; and thus 
far no Champollion has arisen to solve the enigmas which 
have been preserved in stone. 1 Before examining the monu- 
ments themselves we must sum up the opinions of. modern 
historians, who have thrown a little light where, before their 
researches, nothing but obscurity and chaos existed. 

One fact appears probable, and that is that there was a 
tendency of population extending over a long period from 
the north toward the south, 2 one driving another before it as 
one wave of the sea follows that in advance of it. We can- 
not do better than compare these successive invasions, with 
those of the barbarous races that quarrelled over the parts 
of the dismembered Roman empire, or with that of the 
Aryans, who from the farther end of Asia fell in hordes 
first upon India and Persia and then upon the different coun- 
tries of Europe, giving to the vanquished as the price of 
their defeat a culture undoubtedly superior to that they had 
formerly possessed. 

The people who successively established themselves in 

^ 1 The twelfth century of our era is the limit of our very incomplete historical 
knowledge of America. All that has come down to us of earlier days are a 
few ethnological facts and legends or fables usurping the place of truth. With 
such materials hypothesis has run wild. ^ The Abbe Brasseur de Bourbourg 
(" Popol-Vuh," Introd.) says that in 955 B.C. there was in America a settled gov- 
ernment. The chronicle of Clavigero (" St. del Messico," book II. ch. I.) com- 
mences 596 years before our era. Veytia (" Hist. Ant. de Mejico," t. I., chap, 
II.) dates the first migrations of the Nahuas from the year 2,237 after the Crea- 
tion ; while Valentini ("The Katunes of Maya History") by a more reason- 
able calculation places them 137 years after Christ. Ixtlilxochitl (" Hist. Chi- 
chimeca," Kingsborough, vol. IX.) in his turn gives the year 503 A.D. as the 
date of the foundation of Tezcuco. All these dates, however, are, we repeat, 
merely fanciful. There is no positive evidence either to confirm or to disprove 
them. 

2 Bancroft's opinion, however, is that " while the positive evidence in favor 
of the migration from the south is very meagre, it must be admitted that the 
southern origin of the Nahua culture is far more consistent with fact and tradi- 
tion than was the north-western origin, so long accepted." " Native Races," 
vol. II., p, 117. 



262 



PRE-HIS TORIC A ME RICA . 



Central America were probably of Nahuatl race. The vigo- 
rous researches being made in America itself tend more and 
more to connect with this single source the Olmecs, Toltecs, 
Miztecs, Zapotecs, Chichimecs, and Aztecs, and it is to vari- 
ous branches of this conquering race that we owe the ruined 
monuments still scattered over Mexico, Yucatan, Honduras, 
Guatemala, and Nicaragua, and found as far as the Isthmus 
of Tehuantepec. 

The earliest were the Mayas, who are also supposed to 
have been of Nahuatl origin, though we are unable to assert 
any thing positive on this point, as the traditions, monu- 
ments and hieroglyphics which can with certainty be attrib- 
uted to them, appears to differ from those of the Nahuas, 
and their language presents striking disparities. 1 The last 
fact would form a conclusive argument against a common 
origin, did we not know with what rapidity dialects are 
transformed, which primitively sprang from a single source, 2 
and if side by side with these differences we did not note re- 
markable resemblances, such as the monosyllabic words and 
the similarity in the construction of phrases 3 ; all that Ave can 
really say at the present moment is that if the Mayas and 
the various branches of the Nahuas had really a common 
origin, their separation certainly preceded the Spanish inva- 
sion by a considerable period. 

The Mayas are supposed to have dwelt upon the shores of 
the Atlantic. They migrated probably after defeat, and later 
established themselves in Chiapas, on the banks of the Usu- 
macinta River, in the midst of a rich and fertile country. 4 

1 Kingsborough : " Ant. of Mexico," vol. III.; Prescott, "Hist, of the 
Conquest of Mexico," vol. I., p. 104; Bancroft, "Native Races," vol. II., 
p. 772. 

2 Senor Orozco y Bcrra made out fifteen dialects belonging to the Maya. 
Among these we may mention the Quiche, Tzendal, and Cakchiquel. Maya 
or its derivatives was spoken in Tabasco, Chiapas, Guatemala, part of San Sal- 
vador, Honduras, and Nicaragua. Some traces of it are perhaps too hastily 
supposed to have been recognized in Cuba, Hayti, and various of the West In- 
dia islands (" Geog. de las Linguas," p. 98, Mexico, 1864). 

3 Bancroft, " Native Races," vol. III., p. 769. 

4 Orozco y Berra, /. c, p. 128. 



THE PEOPLE OF CENTRAL AMERICA. 263 

Their empire flourished long, the rule of their chiefs or of 
the tribes subject to them 1 extended over the greater part 




FlG. 113. — Specimen of hieroglyphics found in Central America. 

of Central America. 2 Nachan or the Town of Serpents, of 

1 The Mayas had as many as three districts tributary to them, the Capitals of 
which were : Tula or Tulan, generally placed two leagues from Ococingo, 
Mayapan in Yucatan, and Copan. 

2 Brasseur de Bourbourg : " Hist, des Nations Civilisees du Mexique et de 
l'Amerique Centrale " ; Bancroft, vol. II., p. 523; vol. III., p. 460, etc.; 
vol. V., pp. 157 and 231. 



264 



PRE-HIS TORIC A M ERICA . 



which the ruins at Palenque exhibit the grandeur, was their 
capital, while Mayapan, Tulan, and Copan, were the chief 
towns of the tributary districts forming the confederation of 
Xibalba or of the Chanes (Serpent). 

Such are the only at all trustworthy data that we possess. 
Legends add some details in which a few facts are mixed 
with much that is fabulous. The Maya confederation, it 
is said, was founded many centuries before our era, by a mes- 
senger of the gods named Votan, who came, according to 
tradition, from the other side of the Caribbean Sea, and the 
time of his arrival is placed by the legend ten centuries 
before the Christian era. Perhaps there may have been 
several Votans, and the descendants of the first retained his 
name as a title of honor. 

The most ancient traditions made him come from a land 
of shadow, beyond the seas ; on his arrival, the inhabitants of 
the vast territories stretching between the isthmus of Panama 
and California, lived in a state which may be compared with 
that of the people of the stone age of Europe. A few 
natural caves, huts made of branches of trees, served them 
as shelter; their only garments were skins obtained in the 
chase ; they lived upon wild fruits, roots torn out of the 
ground and raw flesh of animals which they devoured while 
still bloody. 1 Legends have preserved to our day the name 
of the Quinames, wild and barbarous giants, whose memory 
filled the Indians with terror, even during the Spanish domi- 
nation. 2 Such doubtless were the men who struggled with 
the large animals which so long roamed as undisputed mon- 
archs in the forests, pampas, and marshes of the two Ameri- 
cas. It is curious that nearly every American tribe has 
legends of barbarous people who preceded them and to 

1 Torquemada : " Mon. Indiana," vol. I., chs. 15 and 20. 

2 "Los Quinemetin, gigantesque vivian en esta renconada que se dice ahora 
Nueva Espana." Ixtlilxochitl : " Relaciones" ; Kingsborough: "Ant. of Mex- 
ico," vol. IX., p. 322. Traces are also supposed to have been met with of a 
more ancient language than the Maya, Nahua, or their derivatives. See Hum- 
boldt's "Views of the Cordilleras " (Mrs. Williams' translation, 2 vols, octavo, 
1814) and Bancroft, vol. III., p. 274. 



THE PEOPLE OF CENTRAL AMERICA. 



265 



whom all evil attributes are attached in the current myths. 
Sometimes, as among the Eskimo, Aleuts, and northern Tin- 
neh, these mythical nomads are believed to still exist, hidden 
in the recesses of the mountains or the forests. 

All the Central American tribes do not seem to have lived 
in an equally degraded condition before the period of the 
Mayas. Ruins of considerable extent are met with in 
Guatemala. These consist of undressed stones similar to 
those used in the cyclopean buildings of Greece or Syria ; 
but no tradition refers to their origin. They are, however, 
attributed with some reason to a race driven back by con- 
quest, and superior in culture to the people overcome by the 
Maya invasion of Central America. 

It was by war that Votan, placed after his death among 
the gods, established the authority of his tribe, and it was 
by war that his successors maintained its supremacy. Le- 
gends have come down to us of a long series of victories and 
of defeats, of internecine struggles and foreign wars, alliances 
broken off, and revolts of tributary people. A manuscript 
translated by Don J. Perez, called " Katunes of Maya His- 
tory," gives according to the translator the history of the 
Mayas from 144 to 1536 A.D., but according to Professor 
Valentini, who reckons the Ahau or cycle differently, from 
142 to 1544. The Katunes give only incidents of war, as if 
times of peace were unworthy of attention. This manu- 
script escaped the general auto da fe ordered by the Spanish 
priests in 1569. The name of Katunes (from Kat, stone and 
tun, to interrogate) was given in Yucatan to engraved stones 
bearing dates or inscriptions relating to historical events. 
These stones were imbedded in the walls of public buildings. 
Every thing points to the conclusion that the inscriptions 
were not very ancient. 1 

In accordance with the general law of human affairs the 
confederation declined, one invasion succeeded another, and 
the opposition of the Mayas to their invaders was that of a 



1 Salisbury : " Proc. Am. Antiq. Soc," October 21, 1879. Stephens : " Yu- 
catan," App., vols. I. and II. 



266 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



worn-out people, no longer able to defend itself against 
younger and more vigorous races. The result could not be 
doubtful. Amongst the conquered tribes, some accepted a 
new usurpation, others retired to Yucatan and Guatemala, 
where their descendants offered an heroic resistance to the 
Spanish conquerers. 1 

We know very little about the religion, the manners or 
the customs of the Mayas. Three Maya manuscripts are 
known : the Codex Perezianus, preserved in the Bibliotheque 
Nationale at Paris ; the Dresden codex, known since the 
eighteenth century, and long described as an Aztec manu- 
script ; it is published in the large work by Lord Kings- 
borough ; and lastly, the Troano manuscript (named after 
Senor Tro y Ortolano, one of its owners), found at Madrid 
in 1865. Some doubts have been expressed with regard to 
this, and also to a manuscript which figured in 1881 at the 
American Exhibition at Madrid, and which is looked upon 
as a continuation of the Troano manuscript. 2 

The gods of the Mayas appear to have been less sangui- 
nary than those of the Nahuas. The immolation of a dog 
was with them enough for an occasion that would have been 
celebrated by the Nahuas by hecatombs of victims. Human 
sacrifices did however take place, and prisoners of war were 
chosen in preference; failing them, parents offered up their 
children as the sacrifice most pleasing to the gods. 3 

One remarkable distinction is noticed : the office of sacri- 
ficer was considered the greatest dignity to which a Mexican 
could aspire ; among the Mayas, on the contrary, it was 
looked upon as impure and degrading.' 1 

At ChichenTtza, capital of the Itzas, one of the Maya 

1 A. de Remsal: " Hist, de la Prov. de S. Vincente de Chyapa," Madrid, 
1619, p. 264. Juarros : " Hist, of the Kingdom of Guatemala," London, 
1824, p. 14. Bancroft /. c, vol. I., p. 647 et seq. ; vol. V., p. 616. 

2 An investigation by Prof. Cyrus Thomas of the Manuscript Troano, throw- 
ing much new light upon the subject, is on the point of publication by the 
Ethnological Bureau of the United States. 

3 Diego de Landa, " Relacion de las cosas de Yucatan," p. 166 ; Paris, 1864. 
4 " El oficio de abrir el pecho a los sacrincados que en Mexico era estimado, 

aqui era poco honoroso." Herrera, " Hist. Gen.," dec. IV., book X., ch. IV. 



THE PEOPLE OF CENTRAL AMERICA. 



267 



tribes of Yucatan, these sacrifices were more numerous. A 
deep excavation was dug in the centre of the town and filled 
with water. An altar, reached by a flight of steps cut in 
the rock, rose at the very edge of the precipice. Trees and 
shrubs surrounded it on every side, and to add to the awe 
which the spot naturally inspired, a perpetual silence reigned 
there. In the days of Votan's first successors, in accordance 
with the instructions of the messenger of the gods, nothing 
was offered up but animals, flowers, or incense ; but by de- 
grees the people went back to the most revolting sacrifices, 
and in the years preceding the fall of the confederation, if 
they were threatened with any calamity, such as the failure 
of the harvest or the cessation of rain, so indispensable in 
the tierra caliente, the populace hastened to gather round 
the altar, and to appease the anger of the gods with human 
victims. These victims were generally young virgins ; they 
marched triumphantly to their fate, arrayed in rich apparel 
and surrounded by an imposing escort of priests and 
priestesses. Whilst the fumes of the incense rose to- 
ward heaven, the priests explained to the virgins what they 
were to ask of the gods, before whom they were to ap- 
pear. Then, when the incense was dying out upon the altar, 
they were flung down into the abyss, whilst the prostrate 
crowd went on offering up their ardent petitions. In Nica- 
ragua, every one of the eighteen months into which the 
year was divided opened with a holiday. The high-priest 
announced the number of victims to be offered up and the 
names of those he had chosen, either among the prisoners 
or among the inhabitants themselves. 1 The unhappy wretch 
thus pointed out was pitilessly seized and stretched upon 
the altar ; the sacrificer walked slowly round him three times, 
chanting funeral hymns ; then he approached, quickly 
opened the breast, tore out the heart, and bathed his face in 
the still smoking blood. When the victim was a prisoner 
the body was at once cut up ; the heart belonging to the 
high-priest, the feet and hands to the chiefs, the thighs to the 

3 Peter Martyr d'Anghiera, " De Orbe Novo," dec. VI., book VI. 



268 



PRE- HI S TOPIC A ME PICA . 



warrior who had had the honor of his capture, the entrails 
to the trumpeters, the rest distributed among the people, 
and lastly, the head was hung upon the branch of a tree as a 
religious trophy. If the victim was a child offered or sold by 
its parents, the body was buried, custom not permitting 
the assistants to eat the flesh of one of their own people. 
These sacrifices, which dated from a very remote antiquity,, 
lasted until the Spanish conquest. Herrera 1 relates that sev- 
eral Spanish prisoners were thus devoured, and Albornoz 
adds that in Honduras the Indians gave up eating the flesh 
of the white victims because it was too tough and stringy. 

Sacrifices were always succeeded by several holidays, dan- 
cing, banquets, and brutal drunkenness. 2 Husbands had 
to refrain from all intercourse with their wives, and the de- 
vout pierced the tongue, ears, and other parts of their bodies, 
and smeared the lips and beard of the idols with the blood 
from their wounds. 3 At other times blood was drawn from 
the male organ, and some grains of maize were sprinkled 
with it, for the possession of which the assistants disputed 
eagerly, believing it to be an aphrodisiac. 4 In Guatemala a 
woman and a female dog were sacrificed before every battle. 
The horror these details inspire is our excuse for cutting short 
the enumeration. Nowhere Avas human barbarity greater 
than amongst the early Americans, and the cruelty of the 
executioners was. only equalled by the stoicism of their 
victims. 

We do not know who the gods were who were supposed to 
be honored by these revolting sacrifices, and very little has 
been learned yet about the mythology of the Mayas. Some 
of their idols represent men, others animals. Peter Martyr 

J " Hist. Gen. de los Hechos de los Castillanos en las Islas e Tierra Firme 
del Mar Oceano," dec. I, book V., chap. V.; dec. III., book IV., chap. VII. ; 
dec. IV., book VIII., chap. IX.; book XCIV. 

2 The Mayas were acquainted with several fermented drinks. The Itzas pre- ' 
pared one of a mixture of cacao and maize. In other parts honey and the juices 
of the banana, figs, and other fruits, were fermented. 

3 Oviedo y Valdes : " Hist. Gen. y Natural de las Indias," Madrid, 1851-54, 
vol. -IV., p. 52. 

4 Herrera, /. c.j Peter Martyr, /. c. 



THE PEOPLE OF CENTRAL AMERLCA. 



269 



speaks of one huge serpent made of stone and asphaltum 
set up in Yucatan, and we know that the Itzas, greatly struck 
with the appearance of Cortes' horse, hastened to copy it in 
stone and place it amongst their idols. 

The Mayas knew nothing of iron ; copper and gold were 
the only metals they used, and it is doubtful whether they 
understood smelting metals. Christopher Columbus is said, 
however, to have seen, off the coast of Honduras, a boat 
laden with crucibles, filled with ingots of metal and hatchets 
made of copper which had been fetched from a distance. 
Gold was very plentiful at the time of the Spanish conquest, 
and it was used for making ornaments of all kinds. 1 The 
weapons in use were slings, spears, arrows, and darts pointed 
with silex, obsidian, porphyry, copper, or bone. ' The war- 
riors wore well-padded cotton armor, often so heavy that a 
soldier once prostrated could not always get up again ; their 
round shields were decorated with feathers and covered with 
cotton cloth or with the skins of animals which they had 
killed in the chase. The Mayas were acquainted with navi- 
gation. Oviedo relates that the inhabitants of Nicaragua 
used balsas for crossing the rivers ; these balsas were reg- 
ular rafts of five or six logs, bound together with creepers 
and supporting a deck of interlaced branches. 2 The Chia- 
panecs used calabashes for floats. In other localities naviga- 
tion was more advanced ; the Guatemalians hewed out the 
trunks of the cedar and the mahogany tree, and their canoes 
might be counted by thousands on their lakes and rivers. 
The people of Yucatan used trunks of trees in the same way, 
and their boats, which they guided with great skill with the 
help of a steering oar, were capable of holding as many as 
fifty people. Some say that sailing vessels were also used. 

fortes : " Cartas y Relacionesal Emperador Carlos V.," Paris, 1866. Her- 
rera ("Hist. Gen.," decade III., book IV., chs. V. and VI.) speaks of 
golden idols and hatchets. Cogolludo (" Hist, de Yucatan," Madrid, 1688.) 
in his turn speaks of little figures representing fish and geese ; and Brasseur de 
Bourbourg (" Hist, des Nat. Civ.," vol. II., p. 69), of finely chased vases, all of 
gold. 

2 "Hist. Gen.," vol. III., p. 100. 



270 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



A balsa met with by Pizarro, near the second degree of north 
latitude, and the boat seen by Christopher Columbus, were 
reported to have been thus rigged 1 ; but these facts are very 
much disputed, and we only know that the last-named vessel 
was of the same length as the Spanish galleys of eight feet 
beam, that it was manned by twenty-five men, and that in 
the middle was a canopy of matting to protect the women 
and children from the heat of the sun. 

The houses inhabited by these people were of a very great 
variety, but this need not surprise us when we remember 
the great extent of the confederation of Xibalba, and the 
very different tribes composing it. The Quiches and the 
Cakchiquels inhabiting the highlands of Guatemala built 
their towns, as did the Cliff Dwellers, on points difficult of 
access, and surrounded them with lofty walls and deep 
trenches. Grijalva and Cordova, the first Spaniards to visit 
the coast of Yucatan, speak of houses built of stone 
cemented with a mortar made of lime, and covered in with 
roofs of reeds or palm-leaves, sometimes even with slabs of 
stone. 2 These houses had door-ways, but no doors, and 
every one was free to go in and out. 

In Nicaragua, the walls, like those of the jacals of the 
Indians, were of cane. The houses of the chiefs were 
erected on artificial platforms, often several feet high. 
Cortez tells us 3 that the one he lived in, near the Gulf of 
Dulce, consisted merely of a roof supported on posts. The 
temples, with one notable exception, were not more impos- 

1 Ilerrera : "Hist. Gen.," dec, I., book V., ch. V.; Cogolludo : "Hist, 
de Yucatan," p. 4. At the present day the Haidas, living on the Queen Char- 
lotte Islands, build similar boats capable of holding one hundred people, and 
are not afraid to undertake long voyages in them. 

2 Juan de Grijalva : " Cronica de la Ordende N. P. S. Augustin," Mexico, 
1624. " Las casas son de piedro y ladrillo, con la cubierta de paja o rama, y 
dun alguna de lanchas de piedra." Gomara : " Hist, de Mexico," Antwerp, 
1554, folio 23. " The houses were of stone or brick and lyme, very artificially 
composed. To the square courts or first habitations of their houses they as- 
cended by ten or twelve steps. The roof was of reeds or stalks or herbs." 
" Purchas His Pilgrimes," London, 1625-6- 

3 11 Cartas," pp. 268, 426, 447. 



THE PEOPLE OF CENTRAL AMERLCA. 2? I 



ing than the houses of the people. The images of the gods 
were kept in very dark subterranean rooms. Before each 
temple rose a truncated pyramid, resembling those of 
Florida or Mississippi. It was there that the sacrifices were 
offered up in the sight of all the people. 1 

We have now summed up all that is really known of the 
Mayas. The temples and palaces of which the ruins are 
still standing give a better idea of their artistic taste and 
social organization ; but before commencing their study we 
must speak of the Nahuas, who overran in their turn these 
countries whose resources had become celebrated. 

As already stated, we must include under the title of 
Nahuas the tribes, evidently of the same origin, who suc- 
cessively dominated Anahuac. 2 

The Toltecs 3 were the first to establish a regular govern- 
ment, and this government gradually spread to the neigh- 
boring countries. These Toltecs arrived about the sixth 
century of our era ; later they were replaced by the 
Chichimecs, who in their turn were to be vanquished by the 
combined forces of the Aztecs, Acolhuas, and Tepanecs. 
Finally the Aztecs, as conquerors of their former allies, re- 
mained sole masters of Mexico until the Spanish conquest. 
Between the sixth and sixteenth centuries then there were 
three distinct periods in the Nahuatl rule : that of the 
Toltecs, that of the Chichimecs, and that of the Aztecs. 
Between these two limits we must place the numerous in- 
vasions of the various people who, driven on as by an irre- 

1 Oviedo : " Hist. Gen.," vol. IV., p. 27. Peter Martyr : dec, VI., book V. 

2 The prefix A in Anahuac appears to be an abbreviation of Atl, water. 
Anahuac may therefore be translated as the country of the Nahuas by the 
water. It is difficult to fix the extent of this country. It varied greatly at dif- 
ferent periods. We think, however, that it was limited on the Atlantic by the 
18th and 21st degrees of N. lat., and on the Pacific by the 14th and 19th. 
Becker : " On the Migrations of the Nahuas " ; Cong, des Americanistes, Lux- 
embourg, 1877. 

3 The name of Toltecs, which we take for want of a better, is founded on very 
insufficient data. Sahagun, one of the most ancient Spanish historians, was, 
we think, the first to use it, in his "Hist. Gen. de las Cosas de Nueva 
Espaiia." 



272 



PRE-HIST0R1C AMERICA. 



sistible force, precipitated themselves toward this common 
centre. 1 

All these people belonged to one race, all spoke dialects 
apparently springing from the same source. This point has 
been hotly disputed. " From a careful examination of the 
early authorities, I can but entertain the opinion that the 
Toltec, Chichimec, and Aztec languages are one." These 
conclusions of Bancroft's (vol. III., p. 724) are also mine. 

This is an important point ; the identity or the relation- 
ship of languages is incontestably an ethnological fact, which 
establishes the relationship of nations. 2 

Very little is known of this past ; from the time of the de- 
struction of the Xibalba confederation chronological data 
are most confused, and the history of Central America is 
shrouded in mystery which can be only very imperfectly 
penetrated. 

The ancient American races preserved the tradition of dis- 
tinct migrations, in their hieroglyphics and pictographs. Ac- 
cording to these traditions it was from a country situated on 
the north or the northwest that the Nahuas came. This is 
the version of all Spanish historians, and we may mention 
amongst theirr-Duran, Veytia, Torquemada, Vetancurt, and 
Clavigero.^ Bancroft, however, (vol. V., pp. 219, 616, et. seq.) 
thinks these people came from the south. We are obliged 
to add that his reasons for this opinion do not appear to us 
conclusive. 

This country called Hiiehae-Tlapallan in the Popol-Vuh ; 
Tulan-Zuiwa by other historians, 3 must be the same as the 
country of Amaqnemecan, the birthplace of the Chichimecs. 
vX Ferdinand Alva de Ixtlilxochitl, a Christian descendant 
of the rulers of the country, has endeavored to trace the 
ancient history of his race. 4 It is too easy to recognize in 

1 Bancroft with his usual accuracy enumerates these people. We can but 
refer the reader to him. " Native Races," vol. II., pp. 103, et seq. 

' 2 F. von Hellwald : " The American Migrations," " Smith. Cont.," 1866. 

8 An attempt has been made to identify Tulan-Zuiwa with the seven caves 
that play such an important part in Aztec traditions. 

4 " Relaciones " and " Hist. Chichimeca." Kingsborough : " Ant. of Mex.," 
vol. IX. 



THE PEOPLE OF CENTRAL AMERICA. 



273 



his narrative the religious influence of the Spanish mission- 
aries to accord it any great confidence. According to him 
seven families were saved from the deluge. After long and 
arduous journeys their descendants settled in Huehue- 
Tlapallan, a fertile country and pleasant to live in, adds the 
historian. 1 




Fig. 114. — Quetzacoatl (Ethnographical Department of the Trocadero 
Museum, Paris). 

Their sojourn was long and their fortunes were various ; 
they were at last compelled to leave their adopted country 
after numerous defeats, and it was then that they went 

1 Bancroft (vol. V., pp. 208-218) gives a summary of the whole of this his- 
tory, which is legendary rather than serious. 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



southward to found a new country. A singular fact in all the 
legends collected is the reported arrival of white and bearded 
strangers wearing black clothes, who have been absurdly 
identified as Buddhist missionaries, who came to preach new 
doctrines to the Nahuas. Of these strangers there is no cer- 
tain information, all that is definitely alleged being that the 
chief was called Quetzacoatl, or " the serpent covered with 
feathers " (fig. 1 14). The first Spanish writers choose to 
see in Quetzacoatl St. Thomas, who passed from India to 
America. Legends about him are numerous, and their 
variety justifies us in supposing that imaginary or real 
actions of several Maya and Nahua gods were attributed to 
him. All is confusion on this point. 1 He was worshipped 
by the people as the incarnation of Tonacateatl, the serpent 
sun, the creator of all things, the supreme god of the 
Nahuatl mythology. It is to Quetzacoatl that the myths 
and traditions of the Nahuas chiefly refer ; numerous temples 
were dedicated to him, his attributes were represented in 
bas-reliefs, and his image (fig. 115) is met with under the 
most different aspects, in terra-cotta and in stone, wherever 
excavations have been attempted. All the museums of 
Europe and America are well stocked with representations 
of Quetzacoatl ; those in the Louvre have been described by 
M. de Longperier (" Notice sur les monuments exposes dans 
la Salle des Ant. Americaines "). The new ethnological 
museum of the Trocadero is not less rich. Thanks to the 
courtesy of its learned director Dr. Hamy we are able to 
give from it a curious figure of the god in question, (fig. 114) 
represented seated with crossed legs as is Buddha in his 
images. 

There appear to have been very hotly contested religious, 
disputes ; constant wars broke out between the sectarians 
following the god Votan and those who worshipped Quetza- 
coatl, and the vanquished on either side perished under hor- 
rible tortures, or were compelled to fly their country. 

Bancroft, vol. III., pp. 450,451, et set/. Muller : " Americanischen. 
Urreligionen." Basel, 1869, p. 486, etc. 



THE PEOPLE OF CENTRAL AMERICA. 2?$ 

In spite of wars and discord the time of the Toltec domi- 
nation is enshrined in the memory of the Nahuas as their 
golden age. The Toltecs, they tell us were tall, well- 
proportioned, with clear yellow complexions; their eyes 




Fig. 115. — Quetzacoatl. 

were black, their teeth very white ; their hair was black and 
glossy; their lips were thick; their noses were aquiline, and 
their foreheads were receding. Their beards were thin, and 
they had very little hair on their bodies ; the expression of 



276 



PRE-HIS TORIC A ME RICA . 



their mouths was sweet, but that of the upper part of their 
face severe. They were brave, but cruel, eager for revenge, 
and the religious rights practised by them were sanguinary. 
Intelligent and ready to learn, they were the first to make 
roads and aqueducts ; they knew how to utilize certain metals ; 
they could spin, weave and dye cloth, cut precious stones, 
build solid houses of stone cemented with lime mortar, 
found regular towns, and lastly build mounds which may 
justly be compared with those of the Mississippi valley. 1 
To them popular gratitude attributes the invention of medi- 
cine, and the vapor bath (temazcalli). Certain plants 2 to 
which curative properties were attributed were the remedies 
mostly used. In the towns, we are told, were hospitals 
where the poor were received and cared for gratuitously. 3 

Our information respecting the commerce of the Toltecs 
is very vague. We know, however, that it was important. 
At certain periods of the year regular fairs were held at 
Toltan and Cholula ; the products of the regions washed by 
both oceans were seen side by side with numerous objects 
made by the Toltecs themselves. These objects were of 
great variety, for though iron was unknown to them the 
Toltecs worked in gold, silver, copper, tin, and lead. 4 Their 
jewelry is celebrated, and the few valuable ornaments which 
escaped the rapacity of the Conquistadores are still justly 
admired. The Toltecs cut down trees with copper hatchets, 
and sculptured bas-reliefs and hieroglyphics with stone im- 
plements. For this purpose flint, porphyry, basalt, and 
above all, obsidian, the istli of the Mexicans, were used. 
Emeralds, 5 turquoises, amethysts, of which large deposits 
were found in various places, were sought after for making 

1 Bancroft, vol. I., p. 24. 

2 " Casi todos sus males curan con yerbas." Gomara : " Hist, de Mexico," 
Antwerp, 1554, fol. 117. 

3 " En las cuidades principales * * * habea hospitales dotadas de rentas 
y vasallos, donde se resabian y curaban los enfermos pobres." Las Casas : 
" Hist. Apol." MS. quoted by Bancroft, vol, II., p. 597. 

4 Ixtlilxochitl : " Relaciones." Kingsborough, vol. IX., p. 332. 

5 " Gli smeraldi erano tanto comuni, che non v' era signora che non ne 
.avesse." Clavigero : " St. Ant. del Messico," vol. II., pp. 206-7. 



THE PEOPLE OF CENTRAL AMERICA. 



277 



jewelry for both men and women. At Cholula a famous 
kind of pottery was made, including vases and the utensils 
in daily use, censers, and idols for the temples of the gods 
and common ornaments for the people. 

The weapons of the Toltecs resembled those of the 
Mayas. Like them, too, they wore garments padded with 
cotton, forming regular armor impenetrable to arrows 
and javelins. Their round shields called chimallis were 
made of light and flexible bamboos, and those of their 
chiefs were ornamented with plaques of gold, insignia of the 
rank of their owners. 

Cremation appears to have been practised very early. It 
is said that the Nahuas burned the bodies of their chiefs, so 
as to be able to carry their ashes about with them in their 
migrations ; Ixtlilxochitl speaks of a Chichimec chief being 
killed in war, whose body was burned on the field of battle. 1 
The body of Topiltzin, the last ruler of the Toltec race, 
was also burned. With the common people, however, 
burial was the usual mode of disposing of the dead 2 ; such 
was the purpose of the hundreds of tumuli still in existence 
near Teotihuacan. 3 Amongst the Chichimecs, on the con- 
trary, cremation was the general practice. 4 Human sacri- 
fices 5 accompanied funeral ceremonies ; women were burned 
alive upon the funeral pile of their husbands, and they ac- 
cepted this cruel death with joy, for it opened to them the 
first celestial sphere, where they could follow their husbands. 
If they refused to submit to this sacrifice, their future 

1 " Relaciones," loc. cit., pp. 325, 327, 332, 38S. 

2 " La gente menuda comunmente se enterrana," Gomara, loc. cit., fol. 
308. 

3 Sahagun : "Hist. Gen.," vol. III., book X., p. 141. Ixtlilxochitl, loc. cit. „ 
P- 327- 

4 Torquemada : " Monarquia Indiana," Madrid, 1723, vol. I., pp. 60,. 
72, 87. 

5 The victims were generally prisoners of war. At royal funerals were also 
offered up those who were born in the five complementary days of their 
year, which were looked upon as of bad omen. Ixtlilxochitl, loc. cit., p. 379 
and 388. Veytia : " Hist. Antigua de Mejico," Mexico, 1S36, vol. III., pp. 
8, etseq. 



2/8 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



life had to be passed in Mictlan, a gloomy and solitary 
abode. 

The Toltecs formed a grand confederation of tribes, under 
the government of hereditary chiefs. By a somewhat strange 
condition, of which we know no other example in the his- 
tory of races, the rulers could only reign for a cycle of 
years {Xuihtnolpilli). — This cycle was fixed at fifty-two 
years, and when this time, which, it must be admitted, was 
of considerable length, was accomplished, the chief handed 
over to his successor the power and insignia of office. An- 
other obligation, little in harmony with the customs of the 
Nahuas, with whom concubinage was legal, was imposed 
upon the chief : he could not have more than one wife, and 
if she died before him, he was forbidden to re-marry, and he 
could not even take a concubine. Second marriage was 
also forbidden to the wives of rulers. 1 

The traditions which have come down to us of the mag- 
nificence of the Toltec rulers are interesting, and probably 
much exaggerated. The palace of Quetzacoatl, 2 according 
to these legends, contained four principal rooms : the first 
opened on the east and was called the Gilded Chamber ; its 
Avails were covered with finely chased plaques of gold ; an 
Emerald and Turquoise Room was on the west, and as its 
name implies, the walls were encrusted with these stones ; 
the walls of the southern room were ornamented with shells 
of brilliant colors, set in plaques of silver ; and lastly, the 
northern room was of finely wrought red jasper. In another 
palace, the walls of all the rooms were hidden by tapestries 
of feathers ; in one the feathers were yellow ; in another, 
blue taken from the wings of a bird called XenJitototl. In 
the southern room the feathers were white, and in that on 
the north they were red. 3 

Side by side with the Toltecs, in the mountainous regions 
of the north of Mexico, lived numerous savage tribes, in- 

1 Bancroft, vol. II., p. 265. 

2 We should have remarked that the termination tl, so characteristic of the 
Xahuatl language, is met with again in the Indian dialects of the Pacific coast. 

3 Sahagun, " Hist. Gen.," vol. III., book X., p. 107. 



THE PEOPLE OF CENTRAL A ME PLC A. 2JQ 

eluded under the general name of Chichimecs, of which the 
more important were the Pames, Otomes, Pintos, Micho- 
caques, and Tarascos. These people, chiefly of the Nahuatl 
race, and coming originally from the same district as the 
Toltecs, were plunged in the most complete barbarism. 
They despised all culture, and their only occupation was to 
hunt game in the forests which covered a great part of their 
territory, even to the summit of the loftiest mountains. No 
flesh came amiss to them ; they ate wolves, pumas, weasels, 
moles, and mice ; failing them, lizards, snakes, grasshoppers 
and earth-worms. 1 

Spanish historians report that in the sixteenth century the 
Chichimecs wandered about compktely naked, or wearing 
only the skins of beasts, which they flung over their shoulders, 
with the hair inside in the winter and outside in the summer. 
Most of them lived in caves, or rock-shelters. Some of them, 
however, knew how to shelter themselves, either by placing 
a roof of palm-leaves upon posts sunk in the ground, or by 
driving trunks of trees into the earth, which were then 
bound together with creepers. Where wood was scarce, 
they replaced it with clay, dried in the sun and cut into 
adobes. Inside these huts hung a few reed mats, which with 
gourds and very rude pottery made up all their household 
goods. On this pottery, however, a certain artistic feeling 
is already discernible, and black figures, executed with taste, 
often stand out upon a red ground. 

Constantly at war with their neighbors, they often under- 
took raids, and could repulse with energy every attack upon 
their own territory. Their weapons were bows and arrows, 
slings, with which they flung little pottery balls, which 
caused dangerous wounds, and above all, clubs, which were 
formidable weapons in their hands. 2 

The warriors wore a bone at their waist, and on this bone, 
in testimony of their courage, they made a mark for every 

1 Jos. de Acosta, " Hist. Natural y moral de las Yndias." Seville, 1580. 

2 Ixtlilxochitl : " Hist. Chic," /. c, p. 214. Gomara : /. <r., p. 298. Torque- 
mada : /. c, p. 38. 



28o 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



enemy that they killed. The prisoners were treated with 
unheard-of cruelty, and perished under the most horrible 
torture. The conqueror often scalped them on the field of 
battle, and the bleeding scalp became a glorious trophy. 
The heads of the victims were carried in triumph round the 
camps, in the midst of dances and rejoicings celebrating the 
victory. The horror and terror with which the Toltecs re- 
garded these people can be imagined. They called them 
barbarians and drinkers of blood, on account of their taste 
for the blood of their victims, and their habit of eating 
strips of raw flesh. This reputation survived their defeat, 
and after the Spanish conquest, Zarfate 1 speaks of them as 
the greatest homicides, and the greatest thieves in the whole 
world. The very name of Chichimec, which is said to be 
derived from chichi log, was a grave insult. 

Rude though they were, the Chichimecs had a religion. 
They adored the sun as the supreme god, 2 and they also^ 
worshipped lightning, represented by the god Mixcoatl 3 (the 
Serpent of Clouds), who, like the antique Jupiter, was fig- 
ured with thunder-bolts in his hands. 

Nearly all these independent tribes, always at war with 
each other, obeyed chiefs selected by themselves. Some, 
however, acknowledged no authority, and merely elected 
a warrior to lead them to battle. Still some laws appear 
to have been observed amongst these wild races : children 
could not marry without the consent of their parents, and 
the violation of this rule involved the death of those guilty of 
it. Marriage was pronounced null if, the day after the wed- 
ding, the husband declared his wife not to be a virgin. 
Herrera, moreover, says that the Chichimecs could only have 
one wife, though it is true that they repudiated her on the 

1 Reproduced by Alegre, "Hist, de la Campania de Jesus en Nueva Espana."' 
Mexico, 1841, vol. I., p. 281. 

2 Alegre, /. c, vol. I., p. 279. 

3 Also called Ixtac Mixcoatl, the white nebulous serpent ; recent re- 
searches point to the conclusion that he was the same as Taras, the chief 
god of the Tarascos ; or Comaxtli, the god of the Teochichimecs. Brinton. 
44 The Myths of the New World." New York. 1868. 



THE PEOPLE OF CENTRAL AMERICA. 



28l 



slightest pretext, to replace her by another. These wives 
were practically slaves ; on them fell all the work of the 
house, the preparation of food, the weaving of cloth, the 
making of mats and pottery, the felling of trees, and 
the fetching of the wood and water needed by the whole 
family. The cares of maternity made no break in their 
arduous labor ; whilst they were engaged in them they 
merely hung a basket upon a tree, in which they put their 
children, whom they often suckled till they were six or 
seven years old. 

Such is the picture given to us by historians of the barba- 
rians who were to conquer the Toltecs. What seems still 
more difficult to believe, is that the conquerors at once 
adopted the manners, customs, and social status of the con- 
quered, and the Chichimec supremacy was nothing more 
than a continuation of the Toltec. Must we then admit 
that, toward the end of the eleventh century or the be- 
ginning of the twelfth, after unknown revolutions and 
struggles, these savage tribes obtained the supremacy, and in 
their turn dominated Central America? Is it not more 
natural to conclude that there is some confusion in the ac- 
count of the Spanish chroniclers, the sole sources of our in- 
formation ? This confusion may be thus explained. The 
name of Chichimec was given alike to the barbarous tribes 
of the north and to the chiefs of Tezcuco. It might then 
have been these latter, allied perhaps with a few wilder 
tribes, who were the true conquerors of the Toltecs. 

The culture of the Tezcuans was no less advanced than 
that of the nation they were destined to reduce to sub- 
mission. The chiefs of Tezcuco are reported to have been 
as magnificent as those of the Toltecs. Ixtlilxochitl 1 gives, 
an undoubtedly exaggerated account of the palaces, gar- 
dens, and lakes, made at great cost, and of the manage- 
ment of the forests preserved for hunting, which may be 
ascribed to a natural desire to magnify the importance 
of his race in a manner which would compel the admir- 



1 "Hist. Chichimeca." Kingsborough, "Ant. of Mex,," vol. IX., p. 251. 



282 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



ation of its conquerors, accustomed as the latter were 
to kings and courts belonging to a totally distinct stage 
of culture. He has pretended to enumerate the names 
of towns which had to supply the service of the ruling 
chief. Twenty-eight amongst them had to furnish men 
to take care of the palace; five others, the servants immedi- 
ately attached to the person of the chief; whilst eight 
provinces sent gardeners, foresters and laborers. Tezcuco 
was built on the eastern bank of the Lake of Mexico ; the 
waters are dried up, and the modern town is several miles 
off. But few traces remain of its alleged grandeur. Mayer 
speaks of substructures of adobes, covering squares of 400 
feet. They are supposed to be the foundations of ancient 
pyramids; bits of pottery, numerous idols, chips of obsidian, 
and other rubbish, have been picked up all about them. 

The power of the Chichimec chief who invaded the 
country of the Toltecs is still further illustrated, if we attach 
importance to such evidence as we have cited, by the num- 
ber of those who followed him in this expedition. Accord- 
ing to the historian quoted above (pp. 337-375), Xolotl had 
under his orders 3,202,000 men and women, and he is care- 
ful to add that he does not include amongst them the chil- 
dren who accompanied their mothers. The absurdity of this 
is obvious. Torquemada, 1 though he confesses that this 
account may appear exaggerated, relates that the historic 
paintings which are relied on to atttest these facts, are sup- 
posed to enumerate a million warriors, under the order of 
six grand chiefs and twenty thousand or even twenty-two 
thousand chiefs of inferior rank. Nothing can be more ob- 
scure than the date of this invasion. Veytia (" Hist. Ant. 
Mej.," vol. II., p. 7) fixes the Chichimec victory in 11 17; 
Ixtlilxochitl seems to confuse the facts, or at least he assigns 
to them several different dates, varying from 962 to 1015 
(" Ant. of Mex.," vol. IX., pp. 208, 337, 395, 45 1). Clavigero 
speaks of 11 70. Other historians will have it that the fall 
of the Toltec league preceded the Chichimec invasion. 

1 " Monarquia Indiana," vol. I., p. 44. 



THE PEOPLE OF CENTRAL A ME PLC A . 283 



They differ as much about the facts as about the dates. In 
truth the evidence throughout is more legendary than his- 
torical. 

The Toltecs, enervated by luxury, pleasure, and the most 
shameful debauchery, decimated by pestilental maladies, 
abandoned by the allies they had oppressed and by their 
own subjects, who in consequence of a religious schism had 
emigrated in great numbers to more favored regions, yet 
gave proof, in this supreme danger, of manly energy. Their 
chief Acxtitl called all his subjects to arms ; the old men 
and children took weapons in hand ; Xochitl, mother of 
the chief, is said to have been killed fighting valiantly at 
the head of a legion of Amazons. But these efforts came 
too late ; the Toltecs were completely defeated and nearly 
exterminated, after repeated conflicts lasting several days. 1 
Tolan their capital was taken ; the country submitted ; and 
Xolotl took the title of Chichimecatl Tecuhtli, the great chief 
of the Chichimecs. His descendants added to this pompous 
title that of HuactlatoJiani, lord of the world. 

To confirm his power, he divided the country into several 
provinces, which he gave in fief to his principal officers on 
condition of their subordination to him ; and by a skilful 
policy he planned that his eldest son Nopaltzin should 
marry a daughter of the Toltec ruling family. 2 

It is not our intention to narrate the supposed history of 
the Chichimecs. We may mention among the Chichimec 
chiefs who succeeded Xolotl, his son Nopaltzin, Tlotzin, 
Pochotl, who ruled from 1305 to 1359, Ixtlilxochitl, who 
died about 1419, Tezozomoc, who usurped the power of the 
son of Ixtlilxochitl, and reigned eight years, and lastly 
Maxtla, who possessed himself of the chieftainship by the 
murder of his eldest brother. 3 Their history is the relation 
of a succession of revolts, bloody wars, conspiracies, and 

1 We follow the account given by Ixtlilxochitl ; that of Veytia, " Hist. Ant. 
Mej," vol. I., p. 302-3) presents notable differences ; so does that of Brasseur 
de Bourbourg (" Hist. des. Nat. Civ.," vol. I., p. 405, etc.). 

2 Brasseur de Bourbourg, quoted above, vol. I., p. 236. 
8 See Bancroft, /. c, vol. V., chs. V., VI., and VII. 



284 



P RE-HI S TORIC A M ERICA . 



revolutions, which was to end in 143 1 in the triple alliance of 
the Aztecs, Acolhuas, and Tepanecs, and then in the ephem- 
eral triumph of the Aztecs as conquerors of all their rivals. 

The Tepanecs and the Acolhuas had been the faithful al- 
lies of Xolotl in his struggles with the Toltecs, and their 
chiefs took a subordinate place in the new league. They 
had long been established in Anahuac when the Aztecs, 
arrived there. Both had probably formed part of some of 
the numerous immigrations which succeeded each other in 
Central America. 1 All these men came from a country to 
which the unanimous accounts of the chroniclers give the 
name of Aztlan. Where was this land, this officina gentium 
which throughout more than five centuries sent southward 
whole nations, all speaking the same language ; practising 
the same rights; accepting the same cosmogony; all under 
the rule of sacerdotal orders strictly supervised by priests ; 
with the same divisions of time, the same hieroglyphical 
paintings, the same taste for noting and registering events ; 
and who understood each other without difficulty, recogniz- 
ing their common origin ? There are few points more ob- 
scure and more hotly contested than the situation of Aztlan. 
It has been sought in turn in California, Mississippi, New 
Mexico, Florida, Zacatecas, and in yet other regions. All 
these hypotheses have been brought forward, and there is 
something to be said for them all. The importance of the 
question is assuredly considerable, for, if there be a connec- 
tion between the Nahuas and the Northern Indians, it is to 
Aztlan that we must look for it. 2 

Bancroft, loc. cil. vol. V., p. 305. F. von Hellwald : "The American 
Migrations," Smith. Contr., 1866. 

2 Brasseur de Bourbourg ("Hist, des Nat. Civilisees," vol. II., p. 292) 
places Aztlan in California ; Humboldt (" Researches concerning the institu- 
tions and monuments of the ancient inhabitants of America," translated by 
Helen Maria Williams, 1814), about 42 0 north latitude. Foster: "Preh. 
Races," p. 340. Vetancurt ("Teatro Mexicano," part II., p. 20) speaks of 
New Mexico. Fontaine (" How the World was Peopled," p. 149) looks upon 
the. earthworks of Mississippi as witnesses to Aztec migrations. Pritchard 
("Nat. Hist, of Man," vol. II., pp. 514-5) sees in the Moquis the last de- 
scendants of the Atzecs. Bandelier snys, in speaking of Chicomoztoc (the 



THE PEOPLE OF CENTRAL A ME PLC A. 



285 



The Aztecs had left Aztlan at the same time as the people 
who had preceded them in Anahuac ; but according to 
tradition they halted for a long time at Chicomoztoc. 1 It 
was not therefore until much later, between 1 186 and 1194, 2 
if we adopt the date given by the Codex Chimalpopoca, 
that they established themselves at Chapultepec. Their 
early settlement was full of difficulties ; overcome by their 
neighbors, with whom they were perpetually at war, they 
were forced to leave the country where they had established 
themselves, and compelled to take refuge in the midst of al- 
most inaccessible marshes, dotted here and there by a few 
wretched islets of sand. It was on one of these islets that 
they founded Tenochtitlan, or Mexico. 3 Hunting and fish- 
ing could not long supply the needs of a population which 
rapidly increased. By dint of hard work the Aztecs 
managed to make gardens in the water in which grew maize 
and other plants. 4 Then, the water of the lake being 

seven caves) : " These caves are in Aztlan, a country which we all know to be 
toward the north and connected with Florida." " Report, Peabody Museum," 
vol. II., p. 95, etc.). Clavigero (" St. Ant. del Messico," vol. I., p. 156) 
mentions the Colorado as the stream that all accounts say was crossed by the 
emigrants; whilst Boturini (" Idea de una nueva hist, general de la America 
Septentrional" pp. 126-8) has it that the Gulf of California is referred to. 
Lastly Bancroft (quoted above, vol. V., p. 322), who believes Aztlan to have 
been in the south near Anahuac, concludes thus : " We have no means of de- 
termining, in a manner at all satisfactory, whether Aztlan and Chicomoztoc 
were in Central America or in Zacaiecas and Jalisco ; nor indeed of proving 
that they were not in Alaska, in New Mexico, or on the Mississippi," a remark 
with which we heartily concur. 

1 Bancroft gives the whole of the march of the Aztecs. Chicomoztoc is sup- 
posed to be the seven caves celebrated in all legends. Generally, Chicomoztoc 
is placed in the same place as Aztlan. 

2 In 1 140 or in 1 189, according to two different dates given by Ixtlilxochitl ; 
in 1245, according to Clavigero ; in 1298, according to Veytia, Gama, and Gal- 
latin ; in 1331, according to Gondra. The margin as we see is wide." The 
Codex Chimalpopoca is dated May 22, 1538. Bancroft may be consulted (/. c, 
vol. V., p. 192), who gives interesting details bearing upon the question. 

3 This settlement took place about 1325. Duran cited by Bancroft (/. c, vol. 
I., chap. IV-VI. ; Veytia : " Hist. Ant. de Mejico," vol. II., p. 156 ; Torque- 
mada : " Mon. Ind.," vol. I., p. 92, 288, et seq. ; Ixtlilxochitl : /. c, vol. IX., 
p, 461 ; F. de AlvaredoTezozomoc, " Chron. Mexicana," Kingsborough, vol. IX. 

4 Bandelier : " Report, Peabody Museum," vol. II., p. 403. These gardens 



286 



PRE-HIS TORIC A AT ERICA . 



brackish, they obtained, by paying an annual tribute, the 
right of fetching from the shore the fresh water which was 
needed in their homes. 

Such was the humble beginning of the Aztecs ; but their 
subsequent history is even more confused than that of the 
people of whom we have been speaking. One of the causes 
of this confusion was the constant rivalry between the 
two regions of Tenochtitlan and Tezcuco, and the want of 
care taken by the first Spanish chroniclers in distinguishing 
between the facts relating to each of the two countries. 

It seems that as we approach the end of this bloody era 
tradition itself is effaced. As under the Chichimec domina- 
tion we find whole series of wars and revolts, of struggles 
and submissions. Brasseur de Bourbourg (/. c, vol. III., p. 
194, et seq.,) gives a full account of them. Unfortunately 
he is inexact on a multitude of points. The chief wars car- 
ried on by the Aztecs were against the kingdom of Micho- 
acan, inhabited by the Tarascos, a branch of the Toltecs, on 
the west ; and against the Miztecs and Zapotecs on the 
south. In the midst of this tumult the power of the Aztecs 
was ever on the increase. Their alliance with the Acolhuas and 
the Tepanecs, against Maxtla, the last Chichimec chief, end- 
ing with his defeat, inaugurated a new era in their history. 
After the victory a confederation Avas formed between the 
conquerors. Nezahualcoyotl, son of Ixtlilxochitl, from 
whom Tezozomoc had usurped the chieftainship, in his turn 
took the title of Chic J lime cat I Tecuhtli. Tezcuco was his 
capital ; that of the Tepanecs was Tlacolpan ; and that of the 
Aztecs, as we have seen, Tenochtitlan. 

From this moment the Aztecs progressed rapidly ; from 
the marshes where they had found a refuge after their first 
disasters, their power spread to the shores of the two oceans. 
Their conquests were won by their victorious arms alone; no 
town voluntarily accepted their yoke ; no nation sought their 
alliances. The people, were harshly oppressed by their 



have been termed " floating" but they were probably merely soft and swampy 
islets. 



THE PEOPLE OF CENTRAL AMERICA. 



287 



foreign conquerors and loaded with odious taxes. Tribute 
was paid in kind, and consisted of cereals, cotton garments, 
pipes, rushes, aromatic spices, and various other articles. 
Some towns of the Pacific were compelled to send annually 
4,000 bunches of feathers, 200 sacks of cacao, forty wild-cat 
skins, and 160 birds of a rare species. The Zapotecs were 
mulcted to the extent of forty sheets of gold, of a fixed 
weight, and twenty sacks of cochineal. Certain nomad tribes 
had to contribute jars filled with gold dust. The towns of 
the Gulf of Mexico sent 20,000 bunches of feathers, six 
emerald necklaces, twenty rings of amber or gold, and 16,000 
packages of gum. All had to contribute to the tribute, and 
those Avho were too wretched to do so were obliged to 
furnish a certain number of serpents or scorpions, It is 
alleged that Alonso de Ojeda and Alonso de Mata, men- 
tioned among the companions of Cortes, as the first to enter 
the so-called royal palace of Mexico, noticed some carefully 
piled up sacks. They hastened to take possession of them, 
hoping for a rich booty. These bags were filled with lice, 
and were part of the tribute of a province. Torquemada 
(Joe. cit. y vol. i., p. 461), who is responsible for this extra- 
ordinary statement, adds : " Ai quien diga, que non eran 
Piojos sino Gusanillos ; pero Alonso de Ojeda en sus memori- 
ales lo certifica de vista, y lo mismo Alonso de Mata." 1 
The conquered people, pillaged and oppressed by Mexican 
traders, who were very expert in this kind of traffic, were 
constantly in revolt. Every fresh rising was quenched in 
blood, and thousands of human victims perished on the altars 
of Mexico in honor of the victories. In reading these de- 
tails, we understand the hatred of the vanquished, and the 
devotion manifested by the allies of Cortes. 2 

Mexico, the first houses of which had been a few miserable 
reed or earth huts, grew with the power of its inhabitants, 
and soon became a town worthy of the dominion of which 

1 Tezozomoc may also be consulted. " Cron. Mex.," Kingsborough, vol. IX. 
Clavigero : " St. Ant. del Messico," vol. I. p. 275. Bancroft, /. c. vol. II. p. 
233 and 234. 

2 Bancroft, /. c, vol. V., p. 481. 



288 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



it was the capital. 1 On every side rose the buildings of the 
rulers, and temples of the native or foreign gods 2 ; for as in 
ancient Rome, the divinities of the conquered people be- 
came those of the conquerors. Nor were more useful works 
wanting. Viaducts, supplemented by large bridges con- 
structed on scientific principles, were erected by the tribu- 
tary or allied tribes, rendering communication easy. 3 A 
dyke seven or eight miles long, and, according to different 
accounts, thirty to sixty feet wide, was intended to protect 
the city of Mexico against inundations. 4 The inhabitants 
were supplied with water by means of aqueducts, and as 
early as 1446, this water was conducted from Chapultepec 
to the capital through earthenware pipes. 

The prosperity of Tezcuco was not inferior to that of 
Mexico, and the figures of two of its rulers stand out to re- 
lieve the monotony of the history of Anahuac. Thanks to 
the wise administration of Nezahualcoyotl, Tezcuco had be- 
come the centre of the art and culture of that people. 5 The 
chief himself was a distinguished poet. Ixtlilxochitl, his 
•descendant in the direct line, has preserved some of his 
poems, 6 which were still famous at the time of the conquest. 

1 The Mexican chiefs previous to the Spanish conquest were Itzcoatl who died, 
1440 ; Montezuma I. to 1469 ; Axayacatl to 1481 ; Tizoc to i486 ; Ahuizotl 
to 1503 ; Montezuma II. to 1520. 

2 Torquemada alleges that there were more than forty thousand temples or 
teocallis in Mexico. 

3 " Hay sus puentes de muy anchas, y muy grandes vigas juntas y recias y 
bien labradas, y tales que por muchas dellas pueden passar diez de caballo 
juntos a la par." Cortes : " Cartas," p. 203. 

4 Veytia, vol. III., p. 247. Torquemada, vol. I., p. 157. Clavigero, vol. I., 
p. 233. Brasseur de Bourbourg, vol III., p. 228. 

5 Sagahun describes the education given to the sons and daughters of the 
chief. He mentions a discourse addressed by Nezahualcoyotl to his children, 
remarkable for the elevated sentiments displayed in it. 

6 Four odes are given in Lord Kingsborough's collection (vol. VIII., pp. 110- 
115). One is an imprecation against Tezozomoc, who had usurped the throne 
of Nezahualcoyotl's ancestors ; another is the ode on the vicissitudes of life, 
from which the above quotation is taken ; the third, recited at a banquet, is a 
comparison between the chiefs of Anahuac and precious stones. Lastly, the 
fourth, celebrates the dedication of a royal palace, and enlarges upon the per- 
ishable nature of earthly grandeur. Bancroft, (vol. II,, p. 494) gives an Eng- 



THE PEOPLE OF CENTRAL AMERICA. 289 

We will only quote one strophe, from an ode on the vicissi- 
tudes of life, in which the chief, speaking of himself, writes : 
*' No, thou shalt not be forgotten ; no, the good which thou 
hast done shall not be lost unto men ; for is not the throne 
which thou occupiest the gift of the matchless God, the pow- 
erful creator of all things, who makes and who brings down 
chiefs and rulers ? " We may add that the succeeding strophes 
express similar sentiments, which it seems strange to find in 
a man in the state of culture of the Mexicans ; they breathe 
disdain of that pomp of which the chief had learned to feel the 
vanity; if they are genuine, they would justify to a certain 
degree the assertion of the Spanish historian, who tells us 
that Nezahualcoyotl worshipped one invisible god, the ap- 
pearance of whom it was impossible for mortal to conceive. 

Nezahualcoyotl died about 1472 ; he left only one legiti- 
mate son, but more than a hundred children by his concu- 
bines ; that son — Nezahuapilli — succeeded him ; he proved 
himself, like his father, skilful in war, just, always severe, 
often inexorable, merciful toward the weak, generous toward 
his subjects. Like his father, he was addicted to pleasure, 
and he is said to have had in his palace more than two thou- 
sand concubines. He had also several legitimate wives. 
The daughter of Axacayatl, of whom we shall speak, was 
among the number, as were three nieces of Tizoc. 

Among 'his wives was a daughter of Axacayatl, ruler of 
Mexico ; she was very young, and a private palace had been 
assigned to her until the time when the marriage should be 
consummated. She was noted for her beauty, and the king 
paid her frequent visits ; each time he noticed, in a room 
where he was, a great number of statues covered with rich 
robes ; but, not wishing to thwart his wife in her tastes, he 
made no remark upon them. One day he saw the queen's 
ring on the ringer of one of his principal courtiers. His sus- 
picions were awakened, and the same evening he paid a visit 

lish translation of two of these odes. F. W. v. Muller (" Reisen in den Ver- 
einigten Staten, Canada, und Mexico," Leipzig, 1864, vol. III., pp. 128-141) re- 
publishes two other odes previously unknown. 



290 



PRE-H1S TORI C A ME RICA . 



to the palace of Chalchiuhuenetzin. The queen, according- 
to the asseverations of her attendants, was asleep. Neza- 
huapilli went into her room ; a lay figure, dressed in the- 
queen's clothes, occupied her place in the royal bed. The 
Icing, whose suspicions were justly confirmed, pursued his 
researches, and in a secret part of the palace he saw his 
young wife, completely naked, dancing with three of his 
principal officers. The statues were those of her lovers> 
and by a strange whim she had had them represented in 
the costume which they had worn the first time they had 
enjoyed her favors. The punishment was terrible ; not- 
withstanding the respect due to her rank, she was strangled 
and with her perished her lovers, the women in her ser- 
vice, and more than two thousand persons convicted of 
complicity, or of even the slightest knowledge of her 
licentiousness. 1 

This is not the only example of severity which legend 
narrates of Nezahualpilli. His eldest son had shown re- 
markable talents as a general. He was the favorite of the 
chief, who conferred upon him the title of Tlatccatl, the 
greatest honor which a Tezcuan could receive. One day he 
was accused of having spoken too freely to one of his father's 
concubines. The chief examined the guilty persons, and the 
fact being proved, he did not hesitate to put into practice a 
law which he had made ; he condemned his son to death, 
and caused him to be executed in spite of the supplications 
of his courtiers. 2 Another of his sons had begun the build- 
ing of a palace, without having obtained authority for so 
doing, or having distinguished himself in war by any of 
those actions which alone gave the right to possess a sep- 
arate palace ; the chief caused him also to be executed.. 
Some years afterward, Tezozomoc, father-in-law of Monte- 
zuma, was accused of adultery ; the judges, out of regard for 
his rank, had only condemned him to banishment. Neza- 

1 Torquemada, vol. I., p. 184. Ixtlilxochitl : "Hist. Chichemec," loc. ci/.„ 
pp. 265, 267, 271. 

2 Torquemada : " Mon. Ind.," vol. I., p. 165. 



THE PEOPLE OF CENTRAL AMERICA. 29 1 



hualpilli ordered him to be strangled, thereby greatly irritat- 
ing the chiefs who were his allies. 

The last years of the life of the ruler of Tezcuco were sad. 
A prophecy, in which the Tezcuans placed great confidence, 
gave out that the god Quetzacoatl was to return to the 
earth, in the same form as at his first appearance. The date, 
fixed by this prophecy, arrived, and coincided with the dis- 
embarkation of the Spaniards. The superstitious mind of 
the chief was singularly impressed by this fact. From that 
time he shut himself up in his house, occupied himself no 
more with public affairs, and even refused to receive those 
to whom he had entrusted the management of affairs. His 
death, now supposed to have been in 15 15, was long un- 
known, and a legend which grew up round his name has 
been perpetuated to the present day ; the Tezcuans im- 
agined that death could not touch him, and that he had re- 
tired to Amaquemecan, the land of his ancestors. 1 

The death of Nezahualpilla, and the quarrels which arose 
between his sons, promoted the ambitious schemes of 
Montezuma. He was for a short time undisputed master of 
Anahuac, but fortune soon abandoned him ; he knew neither 
how to fight the Spanish, to treat with them, or to ensure 
the devotion of his own people. The empire of the Aztecs 
was doomed, and Anahuac, like the whole of the New 
World, was to belong to other races, for whom by unfathom- 
able decrees the future of America was reserved. 

So far as we can judge at the present day, religious ideas 
were met with amongst all the American races, but with the 
most striking contrasts. Some tribes had not got beyond 
fetichism, the most degraded and primitive form of wor- 
ship. Idolatry, which prevailed amongst the nations of 
Central America, was a higher form ; the savage adored the 
waves of the sea, the trees of the forest, the waters of the 
spring, the stars of the firmament, the stones beneath his 

1 Torquemada, vol. I., p. 216. Ixtlilxochitl : " Hist. Chic," pp. 282, 388, 
4 c Tezozomoc, Kingsborough, vol. IX., p. 178, Fray Diego Duran places 
his death in 1509, " Hist, de las Indias de la Nueva Espaha," written between 
1567 and 1581, and published at Mexico by D. Ramirez in 1867. 



292 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



feet ; he invested with supernatural power the first object to 
strike his eyes or impress his imagination. The idolater is 
superior to the fetich worshipper ; he adores the god of the 
sun, of the sea, of the forest, of the spring ; he often clothes 
this god, before whom he trembles, with a human form (figs. 
114, 115, 116), and attributes to him the passions of his own 
heart. Monotheism, from a purely philosophical point of 
view, is a great advance. It has been said that the Aztecs 
adored an invisible god, Teotl, the supreme master, but this 




Fig. 116. — Idol in terra-cotta. 



fact is disputed, and every thing goes to prove on the contrary 
that polytheism existed amongst them, and a very inferior 
polytheism, too, to that, for instance, which history records 
among the Egyptians or the Greeks. 1 The number of sec- 
ondary divinities was very considerable ; every tribe, every 
family, every profession had its patrons, and thought to do 
honor to its gods by severe fasts, prolonged chastity, baths- 
purifications, and often also cruel mortifications. 

1 " Their mythology, as far as we know it, presents a great number of uncon- 
nected gods, without apparent system or unity of design." Gallatin, "Am. 
Ant." Soc. Trans.," vol. I., p. 352. 



THE PEOPLE OF CENTRAL AMERICA. 



293 



Before celebrating the feast of the god Camaxtli, for 
instance, the priests were bound to rigorously abstain from 
indulgence for a period of a hundred and sixty days ; and 
during that time they pierced their tongues with little 
pointed sticks having about the diameter of a quill. 

Among all the tribes of the Nahuatl race religious holi- 
days were frequent, each of them being accompanied by hu- 
man sacrifices. On such occasions, in accordance with a 
strictly observed rite, infants at the breast were offered to 
the god of rain ; these infants were sacrificed on high moun- 
tains, or thrown into the lake which washes the city of 




Fig. 117.- — Obsidian knife used by the sacrificing priests (Trocadero Museum). 

Mexico. In the following month sacrifices no less bloody 
were required by the god of the goldsmiths. Hundreds of 
miserable captives were successively led to the chief priest ; 
the breast was cut open with an obsidian knife (figs. 117, 118); 
the heart was torn out and offered, still palpitating, to the 
idol. At other festivals, if they can be so called, the skin of 
the unfortunate sufferer was stripped off ; gladiators clothed 
themselves in it for mock combats ; or in an outbreak of zeal 
priests prided themselves in wearing the spoils (figs. 119 
and 120) until the skins fell into rags. " They smelt like 
dead dogs," adds Sahagun, from whom we take this 
detail. 



294 



PRE-HISTORIC A M ERICA . 



The hideous trophy was then hung up in the temple 
of Yapico, or, if it had belonged to a prisoner taken in war, 
returned to the offerer of the victim. The rejoicings in 
honor of Mixcoatl, the god 1 of hunting and thunder, were 
inaugurated by battues, in which animals — such as deer, 
coyotes, hares, rabbits— fell beneath the arrows of the 
devotees. Then came the inevitable human sacrifices ; a 




Fig. 118. — Sacrificial collar (Trocadero Museum). 

great fire was lighted, into which the men threw pipes or 
vases (fig. 121), the women distaffs, in the hope that the god 
would repay their offerings with interest in the life awaiting 
them beyond the grave. 2 

1 Perhaps we should say the goddess ; this point has been very much 
disputed. 

2 Bancroft (vol. II., chap. IX., and vol. III., pp. 355-412) gives a very exact 
account of these celebrations, to which we refer those who wish to know more 
about them. 



THE PEOPLE OF CENTRAL AMERICA. 2g$ 



On the day consecrated to Xuihtecutli, the god of fire, the 
captives were carried in triumph, on the shoulders of the 
priests, to the platform from which the teocalli rose, and 
then flung into a red-hot furnace. From every side crowds 
gathered to gloat over the agony of the unfortunate wretches ; 
and dances, rejoicings, and feasts in which human flesh was 
the chief dainty, ended the day. The most delicate morsels 
were reserved for the priests. Part of the body was given 




Fig. 119. — Mexican carving representing an Aztec priest clothed in a human 

skin. 

back to the person furnishing the victim. Sahagun tells us 
that this meat was cooked with hominy. The dish was 
called Tlacatlaotli, and the master of the slave sacrificed was 
not allowed to eat it, for the slave was looked upon as one 
of the family. 

At Tlascala, one month of the year was dedicated to sen- 
sual pleasures. It was inaugurated by the sacrifice of nu- 
merous virgins. At other times, a young man and a young 
girl, chosen on account of their beauty, were maintained for 



296 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



a whole year in royal luxury, and then led to the sacrifice as 
victims acceptable to the gods. 

Such were the religious rites which were observed every 
year. There were also extraordinary rites, on the occasion 
of victory, the accession of a ruler, or the dedication of a 
temple. The last event was frequent in Mexico, and also 




Fig. 120. — Vase used in sacrifices, the head representing that of a priest cov- 
ered with human skin. From the Trocadero Museum. 

the occasion for a sacrifice of hecatombs of victims. If the 
Aztecs were visited by a defeat, a pestilential malady, a fam- 
ine, or an earthquake, the people eagerly offered fresh sacri- 
fices to appease the anger of the gods. The dedication by 
Ahuizotl of the great temple of Huitzilopochtli, 1 in 1487, 

Bancroft's text is as follows: "Native Races," vol. III., p. 288,289. 
" Huitzilopochtli, Huitziloputzli, or Vitziliputzili, was the god of war, and the 



THE PEOPLE OF CENTRAL A ME PLC A. 



is alleged to have been celebrated by the butchery of 72,344 
victims ; 1 the priests were wearied with striking, and had to 
be successively replaced ; but the people did not tire of the 
frightful butchery ; they responded by exclamations of joy 
to the groans of the dying. 2 Under Montezuma II., twelve 
thousand captives are said to have perished at the inaugura- 
tion of a mysterious stone, brought to Mexico at great ex- 
pense, and destined to form the sacrificial altar, 3 but fortu- 

especially national god of the Mexicans. Some said that he was a purely 
spiritual being, others that a woman had borne him after miraculous conception. 
This legend, following Clavigero, ran as follows : In the ancient city of Tula 
lived a most devout woman, Coatlicne by name. Walking one day in the tem- 
ple, as her custom was, she saw a little ball of feathers floating down from 
heaven, which, taking without thought, she put into her bosom. The walk 
being ended, however, she could not find the ball, and wondered much, all the 
more that soon after this she found herself pregnant. She had already many 
children, who now, to avert this dishonor of their house, conspired to kill her ; 
at which she was sorely troubled. But, from the midst of her womb the god 
spoke : ' Fear not, O my moiher, for this clanger will I turn to our great honor 
and glory.' And lo, Huitzilopochtli, perfect as Pallas Athena, was instantly 
born, springing up with a mighty war shout, grasping the shield and the glitter- 
ing spear. His left leg and his head were adorned with plumes of green ; his 
face, arms, and thighs barred terribly with lines of blue. He fell upon the un- 
natural children, slew them all, and endowed his mother with their spoils. And 
from that day forth his names were Tezahuitl, Terror, and Tetzauhteotl, Ter- 
rible God." 

1 Recent researches justify us in believing that the number of the victims 
has been greatly exaggerated by the Spanish historians. Admitting this exagger- 
ation, which seems to us necessary, it is probable that only in the interior of 
Africa could such wholesale slaughter as really occurred in Mexico be paralleled. 

2 Torquemada, vol. I., p. 186. Vetancurt : " Teatro Mex.,"vol. II., p. 37. 

3 Sacrificial altars may be classed under three different types : (1) the 
Tehcatl, generally of obsidian or serpentine, and of convex form, so that the 
breast of the victim is placed in such a position as to facilitate the task of the 
sacrificing priest. " The height of the altar," says Duran ("Hist, de las 
Yndias de Nueva Espafla "), reached to a man's waist, and its length might be 
eight feet. (2) the Temalacatl, a stone of cylindrical form, to which was bound 
the poor wretch, who had to show his courage by defending himself from his 
assailants with the help of nothing but a shield. As soon as an arrow struck 
him, he was taken to the Tehcatl and his heart at once plucked out by the sacri- 
ficing priest. (3) the Cuauhxicalli, a concave stone with a basin in the centre, 
in which the blood was collected. It is to this last type that belongs the cele- 
brated stone discovered in Mexico in 1791. "Ann. del Museo Nacional," 
Mexico, 1877 and 1878. 



298 



PRE-HIS TORIC A M ERICA . 



nately the end of these sacrifices was approaching; in 15 18, 
when Juan de Grijalvawas disembarking on the coast, where 
Vera Cruz now stands, numerous prisoners were being immo- 
lated in honor of the dedication of the Temple of Coatlan. 1 
This was the last of these horrible scenes ; the Spanish con- 
querors at once abolished them. 

In addition to the extraordinary sacrifices which we have 
described, the alleged number of victims who perished at 
the annual saturnalia passes all belief. Zumarraga, the first 
bishop of Mexico, in a letter dated June 12, 1 5 3 1, estimates 

it at no less than twenty thou- 
sand ; and Gomara 2 brings it 
up even to fifty thousand. These 
numbers, which are contradict- 
ed by Las Casas, in his cele- 
brated treatise, 3 are without 
doubt most grossly exaggerat- 
ed ; but certain facts remain un- 
deniable, which show that the 
Aztecs had remained sanguinary 
and barbarous in spite of their 
apparent culture. 

The hope or expectation of 
a life beyond the tomb exists 
Man, however degraded he is 
supposed to be, shrinks from the thought of complete anni- 
hilation, and aspires to a happier life than that he is leading.- 
Before the introduction of Christianity, the conception of 
this life was one of purely material happiness, which varied 
according to the degre-e of culture. The Greeks dreamt of 
purer joys in Elysium than the sensual Mussulman in the 
arms of his houris, or the Scandinavian Viking in the midst 
of perpetual feasts. With the savage the idea of a future 
life is weak; his notions of the past and of the future are so 

1 Torquemada, /. c, vol. I., p. 186. Vetancurt, /. c, vol. II., p. 46. Veytia : 
" Hist. Ant. de Mejico," vol. III., p. 476. 

2 " Hist. Gen. de las Indias." Anvers, 1554. 

F " Hist. Apol. de las Indias Occidentales," Kingsborough, vol. VIII. 




Fig. 121. — Vase found in the island 
of Los Sacrificios. 

amonsrst all human races. 



THE PEOPLE OF CENTRAL A ME PLC A . 299 



confused and vague that it is difficult to make out his real 
impressions. 

Of one thing we may feel certain, that in America, as 
among the nations of the Old World, these notions varied in 
different tribes. Some of those of the Pacific included the 
idea of retribution in the future life ; others believed that 
man was born anew from his ashes, to pass again through 
the same phases which he had already traversed, but the 
remembrance of which was forever effaced from his mind. 
In many places we meet with the idea of transmigration. 
The Tlascallas of the Nahuatl race were convinced that the 
social hierarchy would be perpetuated beyond the tomb, the 
common people being transformed into insects, the chiefs 
into birds. The ideas of the Aztecs were loftier; they ad- 
mitted a series of gradations in the happiness reserved for 
men. Warriors slain in battle were immediately to inhabit 
the house of the sun ; more obscure folk would have less 
brilliant homes in the various stars peopling the firmament. 
It seems, however, that this was but a transitional state, a 
limbo where the dead waited before arriving at their final 
destination. It lasted four years, and throughout that time 
the parents and friends were bound to offer meat, wines, 
flowers, and perfumes to the dead, and to do honor to his 
memory by feasts and dances. 1 These rites were observed 
in the two months of Tlaxochimalco and Xocotlhuezin. The 
first was sacred to children, the second to chiefs and warriors 
killed in battle. 

The same ideas are met with in all tribes of Nahuatl 
origin, and are naturally reflected in the ceremonies observed 
in obsequies. Amongst the Aztecs, when a chief died, the 
body was covered with mantles richly embroidered and 
decked with precious stones. While one of the attendants 
was dressing the body others were cutting up bits of paper, 
taking care to give to each one a particular form, and pla- 
cing them on the body. A priest poured water upon the 
head of the deceased, repeating the words sacred to the 



^.Bancroft, /. c, vol. II., page 618. 



3°o 



PRE-HIS TORIC A ME RICA . 



funeral rite 1 ; after which he presented the corpse with 
various papers. " With this," he said to him, "thou wilt be 
admitted to cross the defile between the two mountains ; 
with this other, thou wilt avoid the great serpent ; with this 
third, thou wilt put to flight the alligator ; with this fourth, 
thou wilt successfully cross the eight great deserts and the 
eight hills." The mantles were intended to protect the 
dead from the winds, as cutting as obsidian, which he would 
meet with by the way. A little red-haired dog was then 
killed ; a leash of cotton was put round his neck, and he 
was buried near the deceased. This little dog had the im- 
portant duty of guiding his master and helping him to 
cross the Chicimahuapau, or nine torrents ; it is not difficult 
to see in this an allusion to the nine firmaments in which 
souls were to sojourn during their successive migrations. 2 

Slaves and concubines were generally immolated at the 
funeral of a chief ; their duty was to serve him during the 
formidable passage from one firmament to another. At the 
obsequies of the Chichimec rulers, the guardian of the do- 
mestic idols was the first victim sacrificed. Amongst the 
Miztecs, who inhabited the present province of Oajaca, two 
male slaves and three women -were sacrificed, who had previ- 
ously been stupefied by narcotic drinks. The bodies were 
deposited in the heart of a forest, and, when possible, in the 
recesses of a cave. 

Burgoa, writing two centuries ago, 3 speaks of having seen 
several of these burying-places. Numerous skeletons cov- 
ered with trinkets, and gold or silver ornaments, lay in 
niches hewn out of the walls of the cave. Here and there 
smaller niches were reserved to the guardian gods of the 
dead, and their statues were still in existence at the time of 
the explorations of Burgoa. Quite recently, in the RioNayas 
vally, in the province of Durango, a cave of considerable 

1 Brasseur de Bourbourg, " Hist, des Nat. Civiiisees," vol. III., p. 569. 

2 Torquemada : " Mon. Ind.," vol. II., p. 527. Clavigero : " St. Ant. del 
Messico," vol. II., p. 94. 

3 ".Geografica descripcion de la parte septentrionnale del Polo Artico de la- 
America." Oaiaca, Mexico, 1674, 2 vols. 



THE PEOPLE OF CENTRAL AMERICA. 



extent, has been discovered in which thousands of mummies, 
not resembling the Indians of the present day, slept their 
last sleep. Each mummy was covered with a mantle of 
richly-dyed agave leaves. The bodies were in a remarkable 
state of preservation ; the flesh was unshrivelled, and the 
hair was silky. No metal object was discovered in the re- 
searches made which is the only indication we have of the 
antiquity of this sepulchre. 1 

In other cases costly monuments were dedicated to the 
dead. It was thus with the great pyramid of Mexico, de- 
stroyed by the Spaniards, which was said to have been 
erected to receive the bodies of the chiefs. What is more 
certain is, that the Conquistadores found treasures in it. 

For the common people the funeral ceremonies were 
necessarily more simple ; the rite was, however, always 
faithfully followed. The body, washed three times with 
aromatic waters, was successively dressed in ordinary clothes, 
bright red clothes and feathers, and black clothes and feath- 
ers. A stone (tentell), of which we do not know the mean- 
ing, was placed between the lips of the dead. Papers, regu- 
lar passports for the other life, were placed by him with 
liturgical words. By his side was deposited a jar filled with 
water, a dog — a companion indispensable to the safety of 
the journey, — the weapons or implements used in life ; a 
hatchet for a soldier, a spade for a laborer, a spindle or a 
broom for a woman. The corpse was then covered with a 
mantle symbolical of the patron of the commune to which 
the deceased had belonged, or even, if we can trust the 
Spanish writers, of the god of the vices the deceased had in- 
dulged in during life, or of the mode of the death which he 
had met. 2 Thus the soldier was dressed in the mantle ap- 
propriate to the god of war ; the merchant in that of the 
god of commerce ; the drunkard in that of the god of wine ; 

3 " Proc. Anthr. Soc. of Washington," 1879-1880. 

2 Gomara : " Hist. Ant. de Mexico," fol. 309. " Vestivano lo d'un abito 
corrispondente alia sua condizione, alle sue facolta ed alle circonstanze della 
sua morte," Clavigero, loc. cit., vol. II., p. 39. 



302 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



the drowned, in that of the presiding gods of the flood ; the 
adulterer, in the mantle consecrated to the god of sensual 
pleasures, — and when all was thus prepared, the parents and 
friends brought their offerings. These offerings consisted 
of flowers, food, clothing, or implements, which had to be 
renewed several days in succession. The dominant idea of 
these rites was the desire of assuring to the deceased an ex- 
istence resembling that which he had had on earth. He 
was finally borne to his last resting-place, a cave, or to a yet 
more simple grave dug in the ground. 

It would be difficult to give even a rapid summary of the 
funeral customs observed in regions of so vast an extent * 
these customs varied in every nation, in every tribe. Some 
of the Chichimecs, after burying their dead, gave themselves 
up to dances and feasts, which often lasted many days. 1 
Near Tabasco, Grijalva discovered the skeletons of a young 
boy and a young girl, wrapped in cotton cloths and covered 
with trinkets. These bodies had merely been laid in the 
sand of the shore. 2 At Yucatan the dead were embalmed,, 
the priests taking out the entrails, and placing them in large 
amphorae, ornamented sometimes with human and some- 
times with animals' heads. In Coazacoalco, to give only one 
example, bones stripped of their flesh were put in a basket 
and placed on the top of a tree near the former home of the 
deceased, doubtless so that he might be able to find these 
bones more easily in his successive migrations. 3 

Cremation dates from the time of the ancient nomad 
tribes, who could by this means more easily carry about the 
remains of their ancestors. The custom lasted for many 
centuries, and, at the arrival of the Conquistadores, it was 
still in certain places an honor rendered to chiefs and men of 
note. Brasseur de Bourbourg, says that cremation was in 
use among the Toltecs ; Torquemada and Clavigero says the 
same of the Chichimecs ; and Veytia, in his " Historia An- 

1 Sahagun : " Hist. gen. de las cosas de Nueva Espano," vol. III., book X.., 
p. 119. 

3 " Chronica de la Orden de N. P. S. Aug." Mexico, 1624. 
3 Herrera, loc. cit., decade IV., book IX,, chap. VII. 



THE PEOPLE OF CENTRAL AMERICA. 



303 



tigua de Mejico," says that the bodies of the first Aztec 
kings were burned. 

The Spanish historians have preserved an account of the 
so-called royal funerals. 1 The body, covered with sumptuous 
garments, was seated on a lofty throne, and the chief nota- 
bles came in turn to pay their respects, as they had done 
when he was still alive. They dwelt upon his virtues, upon 
the grief his death caused the people, and they prayed him 
to accept the customary presents. Each notable was bound 
to offer ten slaves, and a hundred mantles of magnificence 
corresponding to his standing; the common people then 
advanced, bringing less costly offerings ; lastly came the turn 
of the women, and while they Were presenting to the defunct 
the food he had preferred, his oldest followers intoned the 
MiccacuicatI, or funeral chant. This was the signal for hu- 
man sacrifices, the necessary accompaniment of the cere- 
mony. On the fifth day after death, a procession was 
formed to go to the teocalli. The cortege was preceded by 
a large banner, on which were painted the chief facts of the 
life of the deceased ; then came the priests with censers, and 
the servants carrying the body, stretched upon a litter. All 
around walked the lesser chiefs, wearing dull-colored man- 
tles, trailing upon the ground and covered with paintings 
and embroidery representing heads or the bones of the dead. 
The messengers of the chiefs of the adjacent country car- 
ried the arms, the insignia, and ornaments for the funeral 
pyre. The slaves of the king were loaded with clothes and 
other objects intended for the use of the dead, together with 
his favorite food. On its arrival at the temple, some priests 
called Coacuiles received the body. Their songs reminded 
the assistants that they, too, would soon be motionless 
corpses, flung upon the funeral pile, and that the 
only testimony in their favor would be their good ac- 
tions. The functions of these Coacuiles were considered 

1 J. de Acosta : "Hist. Natural y Moral de las Yndias," Sevilla, 1590, p. 
321, et seq. Herrera, loc. cit, decade III., book II., chap. XVIII.; Ixtlilxo- 
chitl : " Relaciones ; " Kingsborough, vol. IX., p. 370. 



304 



PRE-H1ST0RIC A M ERICA . 



so important that they had to prepare themselves for them 
by rigorous fasts. According to some accounts they wore 
on these occasions a costume similar to that of the deceased. 
Other accounts, on the contrary, speak of these Coacuiles 
as disguised as demons, wearing robes covered with hideous 
heads, the eyes of which were represented by little bits 
of mica; others again say the priests were naked, with 
the body painted black, waving in their hands sticks which 
they were to use to stir up the fire. The pile was three feet 
high, the corpse was laid upon it, and when the flames began 
to rise it was the duty of the assistants to throw into 
the midst of it the objects they carried, after which fresh 
sacrifices began. 

In the earliest times only a few victims were offered up ; 
but as the pomp of funerals increased with the luxury and 
wealth of the country their numbers increased. For in- 
stance, in honor of Nezahualpilli the throats of two hundred 
men and a hundred women were successively cut. Some- 
times, before his death a chief pointed out those of his 
concubines who were to follow him. In Michoacan seven 
women of good family were offered up at the death of the 
chief. One was charged with the care of the sacred emerald 
labret that the chief wore hung from his lower lip ; another 
with that of his trinkets ; a third was his cup-bearer. All 
were destined to serve him, and to prepare for him food 
suitable to the rank which he was to retain in his new life. 
Those who could be most useful to the deceased were also 
chosen from among his slaves ; but instead of their breasts 
being opened and their hearts torn out, as was the 
custom amongst the Aztecs, those who offered the victims 
were contented with a more ordinary death. The slaves 
were simply clubbed to death. When the victims of a 
higher sort were ranged around the pile, one of the relatives 
of the chief addressed them at length, thanking them for the 
services rendered the deceased, and urging them to serve 
him with the same fidelity in the new world that they were 
both to enter. Then the unhappy wretches were seized one 



THE PEOPLE OE CENTRAL A MERLCA . }0$ 

by one by the priests and stretched upon the sacred stone ; 
the heart was torn out and flung upon the pile, and the 
corpse was hurriedly carried away. 1 

When the body of the chief was completely consumed 
the fire was put out with the blood of the victims reserved 
for that purpose. The ashes, calcined bones, and fragments 
of ornaments were collected and placed in an urn (fig. 122) 
surmounted by an effigy of the deceased, and this urn was 
placed, either at the foot of the god to whom the mourners 
wished to do special honor, or at those of the divinity 
who had been the protector of the deceased. 




Fig. 122. — Aztec mortuary vase. 

At the end of the ceremony the assistants took part in 
a great banquet ; they were bound to return daily for four 
days to the teocalli and to renew their offerings. On 
the fourth day a last sacrifice of fifteen or twenty miserable 
slaves concluded the affair. With the Chichimecs it was 
kept up longer, and the sacrifices and offerings had to be re- 
newed through twenty-four days. 

The various races which occupied Central America had 
some knowledge of astronomy. They were acquainted with 
divisions of time founded on the motion of the sun, and 
long before the conquest they possessed a regular system. 2 

1 Gomara, who wrote in, the sixteenth century, says that the victim was 
buried ; other historians, that the body was burned on a neighboring pile. 

2 Ixtlilxochitl (" Relaciones," /. c, p. 322), following in the trail of his priestly 
instructors, says that in the year 5097 from the creation a meeting of astronomers 



3o6 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



Amongst the Aztecs it included periods of forty-two years, 
divided into cycles of thirteen years, expressed in their pic- 
tographs by hieroglyphic signs. The year consisted of 
eighteen months, of twenty days each, and five supplement- 
ary days, which were looked upon as of ill omen, and during 
which no Aztec would do any action of importance. Lastly,, 
the days were divided into divisions analogous to our hours.. 
The calculations of their astronomers early proved that the 
year of 365 days did not correspond exactly with the solar 
motion ; so that, many years before the Gregorian reform 
was accepted in Europe, they had added thirteen days to 
each cycle of fifty-two years. In 1790, excavations made at 
the Great Plaza of the City of Mexico, on the supposed site 
of the great Teocalli destroyed by the Spaniards, brought 
to light a block of porphyry weighing not less than twenty- 
three tons. On this block was engraved a circle a little more 
than eleven feet in diameter, containing the divisions of the 
astronomical cycle of the Aztecs. 1 Together with the solar 
year, the Mexicans kept the lunar year, which appears to 
have been used only for religious holidays. This year was. 
divided into periods of thirteen days, corresponding with the 
phases of the moon. 2 

Amongst the Mayas 3 and the Toltecs, as amongst the 
people of Central America, the months also consisted of 
twenty days ; and with them all the number twenty (fingers, 
and toes) appears to have been the base of their system of 
numeration. 

took place at Huhhue-Tlapallan, and it was they who fixed the divisions of 
time which lasted until the conquest. Professor Valentmi, " The Katunes of 
Maya History," places this change in the divisions of time in the year 29 B. C. 
Both of these estimates are, perhaps it is needless to say, more or less hypo- 
thetical. 

*It has been reproduced by Charnay, plate I., and Short ("North Ameri- 
cans," p. 409) copies it from him. 

2 Bancroft, vol. III., p. 502, 755, et seq. Bandelier : " On the Special Organi- 
zation and Mode of Government of the Ancient Mexicans," " Report, Peabody 
Museum," vol. II., p. 475, 557, et seq. 

3 The Maya calendar has recently been the subject of exhaustive research by 
Prof. Cyrus Thomas, of the U. S. Bureau of Ethnology, to whose publications, 
the reader is referred for all details of this branch of the subject. 



THE PEOPLE OF CENTRAL AMERICA. 



307 



The chief weapon of the Aztecs was the javelin {tlacocJitli), 
a short lance of hard wood, the end of which was provided 
with a point of flint, obsidian, or, more rarely, of copper. 
This point was fixed in a slit in the wood, and kept it in its 
place by lashings cemented with resin. Each warrior also 
carried darts which he flung from a distance, a bow 
(tlaiiitolli) 1 often more than five feet long, and slings. The 
macualiuitl (from macua, hand, and cuahuitl, wood) was a 
wooden sword, of similar form to the two-handed sword 
(espadas de dos manas) of the Conquistadors. The Spanish 
also tell us that on the edges of this sword were inserted 
fragments of obsidian as keen as the blades of Toledo. The 
blows of this weapon, 2 used by the Aztecs as a club, were 
formidable ; but the obsidian broke at the first shock, 
and then the macuahuitl became useless. The shield, which 
must not be confused with that carried by the chiefs in 
dances and processions, was small, round, and wadded with 
cotton. 3 The braves, 4 such was the title of the chief warriors, 
fastened it to the left arm. As will be seen, these weapons 
scarcely differ from those of the other Nahuas, which we 
have already described. 

In some places, the defensive works were important. The 
way the Mexicans made fortifications was to choose a 
naturally strong position, such as a hill difficult of access, 
artificially widening, if necessary, the summit with earth 
carried up to it, and by surrounding the whole either by 
stone walls or palisades, essentially in the manner of the 
Mound Builders and Indians. The height of these walls, 
with that of the eminence itself, were the chief obstacles en- 
countered by the enemy. The Aztec method resembled 
that of the Mound Builders, which is yet another indication 

1 Clavigero, /. c, book VII., chap. XXIII. 

2 " El Conquistador Anonimo." Collection of Unpublished Documents, 
vol. I., p. 375. 

3 " Raccolta di Mendoza," Kingsborough Collection. 

4 The title, or rather the rank, of brave was obtained by some dazzling action. 
The braves, as amongst the Indians of the present day, took the characteristic 
names of JiesJi-eaters, great eagles, winged arrows, and such like. 



3 o8 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



of a connection that may have existed between them. 1 

The costume of the Mexicans consisted of a sleeveless 
tunic (nuepil), fastened to the right shoulder, and of a sash 
{inaxtlatT) of gaudy colors. The head, the arms, and the 
legs were left naked. The chiefs also wore a mantle, the 
length of which indicated their rank. This mantle was 
ornamented with feathers, the color of which varied accord- 
ing to the tribe to which the wearer belonged. Clavigero 2 
relates that the soldiers only wore the maxtlatl, and that 
before going to war they painted their bodies, and especially 
the face, black. Alvarado, on the contrary, in a letter ad- 
dressed to Cortes, 3 says that the Guatemalians dressed in 
garments padded with cotton, which came down to the ankles. 
The shoes (cactli-cotaras) resembled the Indian moccasins. 
They are reproduced on some of the bas-reliefs of Palenque. 

As head-dresses, the warriors wore imitations in wood of 
the heads of the tiger, wolf, and serpent, covered with the 
actual skin of the animal. The reward of valor in war was 
the right of wearing, above the ears, one or more partings 
in the hair. The character of these head-dresses and marks 
of honor have been preserved to our day by pictography. 

In Mexico the chiefs were called Teachcautin, or elder 
brothers. It was their duty not only to lead their soldiers 
to battle, but to teach them in time of peace their military 
duties, especially how to handle their weapons. The chiefs 
wore, as insignia of their rank, ear-plugs like those of the 
Mound Builders, and labrets, 4 as may be seen in the repre- 
sentations of them at Palenque and Copan. 

The Aztec government is constantly represented as an 
hereditary chieftainship, strongly organized and supported 
by subsidiary chiefs, also hereditary. The first hints on 
this subject come from Cortes himself {Carta segunda, pp. 
12 and 13). 

1 Tezozomoc, /. c, chap. XC, p. 158-9. Duran, /. c, chap. LVL, p. 443. 

2 L. c, book VIII., chap. XXIII. 

3 A letter of the 28th July, 1524, reproduced by Veytia : " Hist. Ant. de 
Mejico," vol. I. 

4 Duran, /. c, chap. XIX., p. 169. Sahagun, book IX., chap. VI., p. 264. 



THE PEOPLE OF CEXTRAL AMERICA. 



309 



" In the town of Mexico," he writes, "are a considerable 
number of large and beautiful houses, which are the resi- 
dences of all the lords of the country, vassals of Monte- 
zuma." The almost unanimous accounts of Spanish writers, 
unconsciously colored, perhaps, by the impressions or preju- 
dices of their country, combined to establish this account. 
Later researches, however, on the contrary, justify us in sup- 
posing that the government was very democratic, and that 
appointments were given by election. 1 

Tlaca-TecuJitli, the chief of men, the wise veteran, such 
were the titles he bore, was elected for life. It is fair to 
add, however, that this king was almost always chosen from 
the same family. Among the Tezcuans this office passed 
from father to son ; among the Aztecs, from brother to 
brother, from uncle to nephew, but the hereditary right, if 
indeed it existed, had to be confirmed by election. 2 The 
supreme chief could be deposed ; and it was thus that Mon- 
tezuma was degraded, and replaced by his brother, Cuitla- 
huatrin. 3 

Another chief, also elective, bore the grotesque title of 
Chikua-Cohuatl, the " female serpent." 4 He sat beside the 
ruler, and it was his duty to preside at the administration of 

1 Bandelier, /. c. , " Report of Peabody Museum," vol. II., pp. 95, 475, 557, 
600. 

2 The titles of king, nobles, court, lords, palaces, etc., are misleading as ap- 
plied to the chiefs of any American races. Nothing resembling monarchy in 
the civilized sense has ever existed among our aborigines. But this was not re- 
alized by the Spaniards, who saw, without understanding, the organization of 
Mexican society, and applied to it terms with which they were familiar, no mat- 
ter how unsuitable in reality. 

3 Cortes ("Carta segunda ") makes, it is true, no allusion to it ; but Bernal 
Diaz de Castillo (" Hist, verdadera de Ja Conquista de la Nueva Espana," 
chap. XXVI., p. 132), Las Casas (" Brevissima Relacion," p. 49), Sahagun (book 
XII., chap. XXL, p. 28), Torquemada (book IV., chap. LXVIIL, p. 494), and 
Herrera (decade II., book X., chap. VIII., p. 264), are unanimous on this 
point. 

4 This dignity does not appear to have existed until after the alliance between 
Mexico, Tezcuco, and Tlacolpan. Duran, chap. XXIV., p. 205 ; Tezozomoc. 
"Chronica," chap. XXIX., p. 35; Ixtlilxochitl : " Relaciones "; Kingsbor- 
ough, vol. IX. 



PRE-HIS TORIC A ME RICA . 



justice and the receipt of tribute. According to some, he 
could never go to war ; according to others, he commanded 
the Mexicans, while the Tlaca-Tecuhtli led the allies. The 
Chihua-Cohuatl alone had the right of wearing a tuft of 
green feathers on his head, gold rings in his ears and in his 
lips, an emerald hanging from the cartilage of the nose, gold 
bracelets, and anklets of rare feathers. On his war costume 
he also wore a large tress of feathers, which hung down to 
the waist ; and on such occasions used a little drum to give 
his orders. 1 

The aim of war was often merely to secure prisoners 
necessary for sacrifices. When it was resolved upon, the 
Mexicans sent ambassadors to the pueblo against which they 
had a complaint, the ambassadors carrying, as tokens of 
their mission, an arrow with the point downward and a 
shield fastened to the left arm. 2 Arrived at the council, 
they stated their demands ; if the chiefs of the pueblo agreed 
to them, the envoys accepted the present offered to them ; 
if on the contrary their demands were rejected, they 
approached the chief of the tribe, painted his arms white, 
placed feathers on his head, and offered him a sword and a 
shield. This was the accepted form of a declaration of war, 
and when it was made the ambassadors had to beat a hasty 
retreat, or their lives were in the greatest danger. 3 

In truth neither the Aztecs nor the other Nahuas formed 
a state, a nation, or even a political society. They were 
simply a confederation of tribes, these tribes themselves con- 
sisting of an agglomeration of clans or Calpulli.^ This organi- 
zation presents certain resemblances with that which existed 
in the north of Scotland and Ireland. All the members of 
the clan, connected by a real or supposed relationship to a 

common ancestor and bearing the same name, had a collec- 
1 

1 Duran, /. c, chap. XIV. and XVI. J. de Acosta, /. c, chap. XXV., p. 
441. 

2 Torquemada, /. c. , book XIV., chap. I., p. 534. 

2 Ixthlxochid : " Hist. Chic. ," chap. XXXVIII. G. de Mendieta : "Hist. 
Eccl. Indiana." Mexico, 1870, book II., chap. XXVI., p. 129. 
1 Bandelier, /. c. y p. 557, etc. 



THE PEOPLE OF CENTRAL A ME PLC A. 311 



tive right in the lands of the tribe, which they enjoyed, pay- 
ing an annual rent to the chief. 

The Calpulli, true families, doubtless united by a close 
blood-relationship, were responsible for the acts and the con- 
duct of their members. These members were bound mutu- 
ally to defend each other, to avenge injuries done to any 
one of them, and to support the old, the infirm, and all 
those incapable of taking part in the common work. 

There was no such thing as private property, at least with 
regard to land. The lands, which were called Calpidalli, 
belonged to the Calpulli, who could neither sell nor exchange 
them. They were divided at fixed periods between all the 
males of the tribe, with the obligation of cultivating them 
and of residing within the limits of the Calpulli. Some 
lands (tlamilli) were reserved to the chiefs, but neither these 
chiefs nor their families had any permanent rights in them, 
and when they gave up office the lands were reabsorbed in 
the public domain. Other lands (tlatocatlalli) were set aside 
for the tribute that every Calpulli had to pay to the ruler of 
Mexico. They were cultivated by all the members of the 
family, and the crops were taken to private storehouses. 
But for the necessity of making this annual payment, the 
tribes and Calpulli appear to have been completely indepen- 
dent ; their chiefs were elected for life, and no one could 
interfere with their choice, which almost always fell upon 
old men who had submitted, or would have to submit, to a 
very severe religious initiation, which we are about to 
describe. As will be seen, this collection of institutions 
shows no trace of feudalism. 1 

Descent was through the female line, and the family was 
constituted by the maternal alliances alone. It was not 
until later that paternal descent was admitted. Marriage 
existed ; but marriage was forbidden between near relations, 
and probably between members of the same Calpulli. The 
position of women was hard ; they became in most respects 



1 Orozeo y Berra : "Geographia de las lenguas y carta ethnografica de 
Mexico." 



3 I2 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



the property of their husbands. A marriage could, however, 
be annulled, on the request of the woman, provided that 
this annulment had the approbation of the Calpulli, and 
in that case the woman returned to her own family. Every 
man was bound to marry when he came to the age of twenty 
years, with the exception of certain priests, who took a vow 
of chastity in honor of the gods they served. Polygamy 
was not forbidden ; the husband, or rather the master, had a 
right to as many concubines as he wished ; the necessity 
of supporting them was the only curb upon his passion. 

Patronymic names were unknown. 1 On the birth of her 
child the mother chose the name she wished given to him ; 
this name was generally connected either with the month in 
which the infant was born or with circumstances of his birth. 
When his childhood was over the name by which he was 
henceforth to be known was given to him by the medicine- 
man, who played a considerable part amongst the Mexican 
tribes, as he still does alike amongst the Indians of the 
pueblos and the wandering Indians. A warrior could get a 
third name by an act of exceptional bravery ; and this name 
was awarded to him by the Calpulli. 

The Calpulli was also charged with the education of 
children. A public building {telpucJicalli) was set apart for 
this purpose. All the boys without exception went to it ; 
manual work, the art of war, the handling of arms, dancing, 
and singing formed the rudiments of education. 2 Those 
amongst the scholars who were strong enough had to 
cultivate the lands belonging to the Teocallis, which were set 
aside for the support of the priest and the expenses of public 
worship. 

Slavery existed amongst the various tribes of Central 
America. The man belonging to a Calpulli who refused to 
marry, or who did not cultivate the lands assigned to him, 
and the prisoners taken in war, unless they were sacrificed to 

1 Torquemada, book XIII., chap. XXII., p. 454, et seq. 

2 Gomara : " Hist, de Mexico." Sahagun : " Hist. Gen.," book III., chap. 
IV., p. 268, chap. V., p. 269, chap. VIII., p. 275. 



THE PEOPLE OF CENTRAL AMERICA. 



313 



the gods, became slaves. They were called tlacolti, literally 
" bought men." If the slave escaped, his master had the 
right to make him wear a wooden collar. If he ran away a 
second time he was taken to the temple and immediately 
slain. If, as very rarely happened, he managed to reach the 
council-chamber set aside for the chiefs of the tribe, without 
being arrested either by his master or by any other member 
of the Calpulli, he received his liberty. 1 The slave who 
in battle achieved an act of valor not only had a right to his 
liberty, but he could also be adopted by the Calpulli; 
henceforth he became one of its members, enjoying the same 
rights as his brothers, and like them receiving arms. When 
a slave was not thus liberated he acted as load-bearer during 
war, as do certain negroes of the interior of Africa at 
the present day. Beasts of burden were unknown ; it was 
the duty of the porters to carry the necessary maize for the 
frugal food of the soldiers, the tents and the cords for mak- 
ing them fast, and the poles and straw for the construction 
of rude huts. In case of capture by the enemy the poor 
wretches were almost always offered in sacrifice to 
the gods. 

Judging by the accounts which have come down to us, or 
by the old paintings preserved at Mexico, punishments were 
severe among the tribes of the Nahuatl race. 2 According to 
Las Casas, murder was punished by death 3 ; according to 
Duran, by slavery for life. The man or woman who wore 
the clothes of the other sex was also condemned to death. 
Rape, incest, sodomy, were punished with the same penalty ; 
but for each crime the mode of execution varied : the inces- 
tuous criminal was hung 4 ; he who violated a child in 
Michoacan was impaled ; the sodomite was burned. 5 He 

1 Mendieta: " Hist. Ecc. Intl.," book II., chap. XXVII., p. 30. 

2 Bancroft, vol. II., p. 460, et seq. Banclelier, loc. cit., p. 623, et seq. 

3 " Hist. Apol.," App., Kingsborough, vol. VIII. 
* Torquemada, book XII., chap. IV. 

5 In spite of the severity of this punishment, sodomy was no less common 
among the Aztecs than among the ancient people of Europe. " A certain num- 
ber of priests," says Father Pierre de Gand (' Letter included in the Ternaux. 



3H 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



who in a battle took possession of a prisoner taken by an- 
other, he whose duty it was to cultivate the lands of 
children or of others unable to till their own ground, and who 
neglected this duty for two consecutive years, or he who 
stole gold or silver objects consecrated to the gods, was 
also punished with death. 1 The same punishment was given 
for seducing a woman who had taken a vow of chastity, or a 
married woman belonging to the same Calpulli. The adul- 
teress was quartered, and her limbs were divided amongst 
all the men of the Calpulli. 

The restitution of the stolen objects made amends for the 
theft ; but in default of this restitution the thief became a 
slave for life. Those guilty of calumny had their lips cut. 
Old men of more than seventy were alone allowed to get 
drunk ; a drunkard younger than this had his head shaved, 
and if he held any office he was publicly degraded. 

Corporeal punishment was rare. It was considered shame- 
ful even for a slave to be chastised. Pictography, however, 
shows us a father or a master chastising a child with a whip. 
There were prisons in the different Teocallis and the public 
buildings 2 ; and, if we can trust the Conquistadores, these 
prisons were pestilential places, in which the air was so 
vitiated that the unfortunate wretches sent to them rapidly 
perished by suffocation. 

No written laws regulated those various penalties ; they 
were probably inflicted in accordance with ancient customs, 
and must certainly have varied amongst the different tribes. 

We have said that the association of the clans or Calpulli, 
united by the bonds of a common territory, common reli- 
gious rites and a common language, formed the tribe. Some 

Compans Collection,' 1st series, vol X., p. 197), could not have wives, sed 
eamm loco pueros abutebantur. The sin was so common that young and old 
were infected by it." We must, however, make some allowance for 
exaggeration. 

1 Mendieta, loc. cit., book II., chap. XXIX. Vetancurt : " Teatro Mexi- 
cano," vol. I., p. 484. 

2 Teilpiloyan or Tecaltzaqnaloyan. Mendieta, loc. cit., chap. XXIX., p. 138. 
Molina : " Vocabulerio in lengua Castillana y Mexicana," Mexico, 1571, vol. 
II., pp. 86-91. 



THE PEOPLE OF CENTRAL AMERICA. 3 1 5 



tribes are mentioned which included as many as twenty 
Calpulli. 

The tribe was governed by a council composed of dele- 
gates from each Calpulli (tetoani, orators, or techutatoca, 
talking chiefs). They met in the tecpan, or council-cham- 
ber, and it was their duty to uphold the ancestral customs, 
and especially to maintain harmony among the Calpulli, 
which was, according to the chroniclers, a very difficult task. 1 

In the tribe, as in the Calpulli, no office or dignity was 
hereditary. They were obtained by election, with the ex- 
ception of the title of Tecuhtli (grandfather), which was 
given as a reward for acts of bravery before the enemy, for 
long and important services either in the council or in the 
embassies, of which we have described the perils. It was 
also possible to obtain it by a series of initiations, to which 
he who aspired to this honor had to submit. During four 
days and four nights he was shut up in the chief teocalli of 
the tribe and subjected to a most rigorous fast. He was 
bled from every part of his body ; all sleep was forbidden to 
him ; his keepers tore off his clothes, scourged him cruelly, 
and to add to his misery they partook before him of sump- 
tuous feasts, at which he had to look on without for an in- 
stant losing his impassibility. The four days over, the 
novice returned to his Calpulli, where he passed an entire 
year in retreat and the most rigorous penance, mutilating 
himself and inflicting often intolerable bodily torture. 
Throughout this time his brothers collected the presents 
that they were bound to offer to the gods, chiefs of the 
tribe, priests, and medicine-men. At the expiration of the 
year, the future Tecuhtli had to go back to the teocalli and 
to submit anew to the tests he had already gone through, 
and which terminated at last in a grand feast, at which were 
given to him the ornaments that he had henceforth the right 
to wear, and which appear to have been his only privilege. 2 

1 A. cle Zurita : " Rapport sur les differentes classes de chefs de la Nouvelle 
Espagne," Ternaux Compans, 2d series, vol. II. 

'Sahagun, book VIII., chap. XXXVIII., p. 329. Ixtlilxochitl : " Rela- 



316 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



We have now summarized the facts actually known of the 
organization and government of the various people belong- 
ing to the powerful Nahuatl race, who successively overran 
Central America, and especially Anahuac. We have still to 
speak of the ruins, the importance of which becomes each 
day more apparent, which rise before the eyes of the trav- 
eller even in deserts and in the midst of forests previously 
reputed impenetrable. 

Before touching these new questions, we must not omit 
one remark which cannot fail to have occurred to the reader. 
Long before the Spanish conquest the people of America 
had reached that state to which modern socialism would 
return, and of which the latter claims the honor and the 
profit ; the absence of all hereditary principles in property 
as in the family ; communism alike in the pueblo and in the 
Calpulli ; the omission, strange as it may appear, of any 
name transmitted from father to son which could perpetuate 
in descendants the glory of ancestors ; the education in 
common of all children under the sole authority of represen- 
tatives of the Calpulli ; election to all offices and all posts ; 
the merging of the individual for the good of the com- 
munity. To what did these institutions lead, which igno- 
rance and theory delight in holding up to the human race as 
the beacon lights of the future ? To the most complete 
anarchy ; to struggles without end or truce between tribe 
and tribe, Calpulli and Calpulli ; to hatred so fierce that the 
Spanish appeared as liberators, and owed their victory as 
much to the services of allies, eager to escape from the yoke 
which weighed them down, as to the courage of their own 
soldiers. 



ciones," app., p. 257. Mendieta, book II., chap. XXXVIII., p. 156. It is 
curious to meet with ceremonies somewhat like these amongst the Incas and 
the Indians of Orinoco (Bandelier, /. c, p. 643 and note 171). 



CHAPTER VII. 



THE RUINS OF CENTRAL AMERICA. 

In a previous chapter we gave a summary of the best 
available information about the races who occupied Central 
America, pushed southward, founding confederacies, build- 
ing towns, and covering whole regions with their struc- 
tures, to disappear, leaving hardly a name in history, or a 
memory in tradition. To complete this study, we must 
now ascertain what the monuments, or rather the ruins, 
that time and men have alike been powerless to destroy, can 
tell us. 

One preliminary remark must be made. We hardly meet 
with such grand structures as those of Egypt or Assyria, of 
India or of China, except under similar circumstances ; al- 
most essential for their erection were a people living under 
despotic government, and a conquering race forcibly com- 
pelling a subject people to do the necessary work. The con- 
querors contributed their taste, their traditions, and their 
peculiar genius ; the conquered contributed the material 
elements with their labor and the sweat of their brow. We 
are hardly yet justified in asserting that similar events took 
place in America, though we may suspect that the monu- 
ments still existing had a similar origin. 

The researches, made at the cost of difficult and often 
dangerous explorations, have rendered possible some at- 
tempts at classification ; and we can already distinguish 
between Maya and Nahuatl architecture ; and among the 
Mayas themselves, between the style of the buildings of 
Chiapas and those of Yucatan. 1 

1 Short, " North Americans of Antiquity," p. 340. 

317 



3i3 



PRE-HIS TORIC A ME RICA . 



The monuments of Palenque 1 are justly reckoned amongst 
the most remarkable in Chiapas. The town stands in the 
region watered by the Usumacinta, where settled the first 
immigrants of whom it has been possible to distinguish 
traces. The position of Palenque, at the foot of the first 
buttresses of the mountain-chain, on the banks of the little 
river Otolum, one of the tributaries of the Tulija, was ad- 
mirably chosen.' 2 The streets extended for a length of from 
six to eight leagues, irregularly following the course of the 
streams which descend from the mountains and furnished 
the inhabitants with an abundant supply of the water neces- 
sary to them. At the present day the ruins rise in solitude, 
which adds to the effect produced by them. They were 
long altogether unknown ; Cortes, in one of his expeditions, 
passed within a few miles of Palenque without suspecting 
its existence; and it was not till 1746, that chance led to its 
discovery by a cure of the neighborhood. 3 

We owe the first description of the ruins to Jose de 
Calderon, who had been sent by the Spanish government to 
examine them. His account is dated December 15, 1764. 
Since then the}- have been visited by numerous explorers ; 
only a year or two ago Charnay returned a second time from 
Palenque, and the casts taken by him of the hieroglyphics 
there are among the most curious possessions of the new 
Trocadero Museum at Paris. 

1 Palenque comes from a Spanish word signifying palisade ; the ancient name 
of the town is still unknown. 

2 A. del Rio," Descripcion del terreno y poblacion antigua," English transla- 
tion, London, 1S22. Captain Dupaix, " Relation des trois expeditions ordon- 
nees en 1805,-6, and-7, pour la recherche des antiquites du pays notamment de 
celles de Mitlaetde Palenque," 3 vol, fol. Paris, 1833. See also Kingsborough, 
/. c, vols. Vi and VI. Waldeck : " Voy. arch, et pittoresque dans la province 
du Yucatan," fol. Paris, 183S. Stephens & Catherwood : " Incidents of Travel 
in Central America," New York, 1S41 ; " In Yucatan," New York, 1858, by 
the same authors. Brasseur de Bourbourg : " Recherches sur les mines de 
Palenque avec les dessins de Waldeck," fol. Paris, 1S66. Bancroft, /. c, vol. 
IV., p. 289, et seq., gives a very complete bibliography, which is useful to con- 
sult. 

3 In 1750, according to D. Diego Juarros : " Hist, of the Kingdom of Guate- 
mala," London, 1823. 



THE RUINS OF CENTRAL AMERICA. 



319 



Among the best-preserved ruins may be mentioned the 
palace, the temple of the three tablets, the temple of the bas- 
reliefs, the temple of the cross, and the temple of the sun. 
We keep the names given by various explorers in the 
absence of better ones. There are others, but of less impor- 
tance. Dupaix speaks of eleven buildings still standing, 
and a few years before A. del Rio mentioned twenty ; 
Waldeck says eighteen, and Maler, who visited the ruins of 
Palenque in 1877, fixes the number of the temples or palaces 
at twelve. These contradictions are more apparent than 
real, and are explained by the different impressions of each 
traveller, and the divisions he thought it necessary to 
adopt. 

The palace, the most important building of Palenque, 
rests on a truncated pyramid 1 about forty feet high, the 
base of which measures from three hundred and ten feet by 
two hundred and sixty. The inside of this pyramid is of 
earth ; the external faces are covered with large slabs ; steps 
lead up to the principal building, which forms a quadrilateral 
of two hundred and twenty-eight feet by one hundred 
and eighty 2 ; the walls, which are two or three feet thick, are 
of rubble, crowned by a frieze framed between two double 
cornices. Inside as well, as outside they are covered with a 
very fine and durable stucco, painted red or blue, black 
or white. The principal front faces the east ; it includes 
fourteen entrances about nine feet wide, separated by 
pilasters ornamented with figures. These figures measure 
more than six feet high, and are full of movement ; while 
above the head of each are hieroglyphics inlaid in the 
stucco (fig. 123). Some day, perhaps, a key to them will be 

'Some subterranean galleries have been made out in the interior of the 
pyramid. These pyramids, which remind us of the work of the Mound 
Builders, are the most striking characteristics of the architecture of Central 
America. 

2 Stephens, /. c, vol. II., p. 310; Waldeck: "Palenque," pi., II.; 
Armen (" Das heutige Mexico ") gives a ground-plan and an attempt at restora- 
tion of the temple. Bancroft also gives an attempt at restoration (/. c, vol. IV., 
P. 323). 



320 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



discovered and the history of Palenque be revealed. Nu- 
merous masonry niches in the wall merit special atten- 
tion on account of their resemblance to the letter T or 
rather the Egyptian tan. 1 Waldeck made out on some of 
them marks of smoke, from which he concluded that 
they were intended to hold torches ; others may have been 




Fig. 123. — Stucco bas-relief from Palenque. 

used for supplying the passage-ways with air and light 
of which they stood in great need. 

1 " As for the figures of tau, so numerous in the buildings, ornaments, bas- 
reliefs, and even in the form of the lights, although it is impossible to 
pronounce an opinion on this point in the present state of our knowledge, 
we cannot avoid noticing it." Jomard : Bull. Soc. Ge'og., de Paris, vol. V., 
series II., p. 620. One of the bas-reliefs of the palace figured by Bancroft (/. c, 



THE RUINS OF CENTRAL AMERICA. 



321 



The inside of the palace corresponds with the magnifi- 
cence of the outside ; there are galleries forming a peristyle 
all round the court ; and the rooms are decorated with 
granite bas-reliefs (fig. 124), grotesque figures, some thirteen 
feet high. The drawing and the anatomical proportions are 
tolerably correct, and the expression of the figures speaks 
well for the skill of the artist ; but the execution is weak, 
suggesting an art in decadence rather than the ruggedness 
of one in its infancy. 1 




FlG. 124. — Bas-relief of the palace of Palenque. 



These rooms were united by corridors ; we reproduce a 
section of one of them (fig. 125), which will give an idea of 
the mode of its construction. The architects of Palenque 
were ignorant of the arch, and their vaults were formed of 
over-sailing courses, one above the other, as in the cyclopean 
monuments of Greece and Italy. 

vol. IV., p. 317) is a figure wearing an ornament in the form of the tau. 
In chapter VIII, we mention some windows which are also of this form 
in the Yucay valley, Peru. We know that the tau, in Egyptian hieroglyphics, 
signifies life. Max Uhlman : " Handbuch der gesamten Aegyptischen 
alterthumskunde," vol. I., p. 108. 

1 Viollet le Due, in Charnay : " Cites et Ruines Americaines," Int., p. 74. 



322 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



The building is finished off with a tower of three stories, 
measuring thirty feet square at the base. Here. too. we find 
symbolical decorations, which are very rich and in a very 
good state of preservation. There is nothing to indicate the 
age^oj this palace; it was, as we have said, abandoned at the 
time of the Spanish conquest, at which epoch, moreover, 
none of the races peopling America were in the habit of 
constructing similar buildings. We can. however, fix a cer- 
tain limit to its age ; for, with tropical rains lasting six 
months a year, and the luxurious vegetation which fills all 
the crevices, no monument could last for a number of cen- 
turies, such as is attributed, for instance, to the buildings of 
Egypt : and the most daring conjectures do not admit of 



Fig. 125, — Section of a double corridor at Palenque. 

our dating the monuments of Palenque earlier than the first 
centuries of our era. 1 After this last visit, indeed, Charnay 
no longer accepts so remote a date as that, but thinks that 
all the monuments of Yucatan are the work of the Toltecs. 
and were built between the twelfth and fourteenth cen- 
turies. 2 It is impossible that these delicate ornaments, 
made of little lozenge-shaped bits of cement stuck on to the 
wall, could have longer resisted the effects of a destructive 



1 Bancroft (vol. IV., p. 362, note 65; gives a list of all the hypotheses as to 
the date of the foundation of Palenque. They van- from the date of the 
deluge to the fifteenth century of the Christian era. The margin, it will be 
seen, is wide. 

8 Bull. Soc. Geogr., November, 1SS1. 



THE RUINS OF CENTRAL AMERICA. 



323 



climate. Another no less important remark must be made. 
The staircases are new, the steps are whole, the edges are 
sharp ; nowhere do we see any traces of wear and tear, the 
certain proofs of long habitation. The conclusion is inevi- 
table ; the people of Palenque, for reasons which are still 
unknown, evacuated the town soon after the construction of 
the chief buildings. 

The size of the trees overgrowing the roofs and the pyra- 
mids had hitherto been accepted as a conclusive proof of 
the antiquity of these buildings. It was by relying upon 
such evidence that Waldeck spoke of 2,000 years ; and Lar- 
rainzar speaks of one tree amongst the ruins, on which he 
was able, with the help of a microscope, to count as many 
as 1,700 concentric circles, to which, founding his opinion on 
the formerly received data, he assigned an antiquity of 
1,700 years. But here again Charnay comes to totally dif- 
ferent conclusions. He had a shrub cut down, eighteen 
months old at most, and found in it eighteen of these cir- 
cles. His first thought was, that he had come upon an 
anomaly ; but after having several trees of different kinds 
and sizes cut down, he found in all of them similar phenom- 
ena in similar proportions. 

Nor is this all ; at the time of his first visit to Palenque in 
1859, Charnay had the trees hiding the ruins cut down, so 
as to take more exact photographs. Other trees grew up in 
their places, which trees must have been twenty-two years 
old in 1881. On a section of one of these, rather more than 
two feet in diameter, he counted 230 concentric circles. 
This is an important fact of vegetable physiology, and proves 
that we cannot estimate the age of trees in the tropics by 
the same process as we do that of those in northern lati- 
tudes (which for that matter also afford but imperfect evi- 
dence), and the chief proof of the antiquity of the buildings 
of Palenque falls through completely. 

It would take too long to describe the other monuments 
of Palenque, which are known under the name of temples. 1 



1 The great temple of Palenque bears a curious resemblance to that of Boro- 
Boudor, in the island of Java. Edinburgh Review, April, 1867. 



324 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



We must, however, mention one of them, situated on the 
other bank of the Otolum, and known under the name of 
the Temple of the Cross. It rises from a truncated pyra- 
mid and forms a quadrilateral with three openings in each 
face, separated by massive pilasters, some ornamented with 
hieroglyphics and some ornamented with human figures. 
The frieze is also covered with human figures, and amongst 
those still visible Stephens mentions a head and two torsos, 
which, in their perfection of form, recall Greek art. The 
openings, all at right angles, lead into an inside gallery com- 
municating with three little rooms. The central one of 
these rooms contains an altar, which fairly represents an 
open chest, ornamented with a little frieze with a margin. 
From the two upper extremities of this frieze spring two 
wings, recalling the mode of ornamentation so often em- 
ployed in the pediments of Egyptian monuments. 1 

Above the altar was originally placed the tablet of the 
cross (fig. 126), which was afterward torn from its position 
by the hand of a fanatic, who chose to see in it the sacred 
sign of the Christian faith, miraculously preserved by the 
ancient inhabitants of the palace. The tablet was taken 
down and then abandoned, we know not why, in the midst 
of the forest covering part of the ruins. .Here it was that 
the Americans discovered part of it, took possession of it, 
and carried it to Washington, where it forms part of the 
collection of the National Museum. 2 The centre represents 
a cross, resting upon a hideous figure, and surmounted by a 
grotesque bird. On the right, a figure on foot is offering 
presents ; on the left, another figure, in a stiff attitude, 
seems to be praying to the divinity. The costume of 
these two persons is unlike any that is now in use ; and 
above their heads we can make out several hieroglyphical 
characters. A slab on the right is also covered with them. 
In the present state of knowledge it is impossible to make 

1 Charnay, loc. cit., p. 417, from whom we borrow the greater part of 
these details. Del Rio, loc. cit., p. 17. Waldeck, plate XX. Stephens, loc. 
«Y.,"vol. II., p. 344. 

2 Ch. Rau : "The Palenque Tablet," Smith Cont., vol. XXII. 



THE RUINS OF CENTRAL AMERICA. 



325 



out whether these inscriptions are prayers to the gods, the 
history of the country or that of the temple, the name or 
the dedication of the founders. 

At the end of the sanctuary recently discovered near 
Palenque 1 (fig. 127, p. 326), by Maler, are three slabs of 
sculptured stone in low relief. On the right and left are 




Fig. 126. — Tablet of the cross at Palenque. 



hieroglyphics ; in the centre a cross, surmounted by a 
head of strange appearance, wearing round the neck a 
collar with a medallion ; above this head is a bird, and on 
either side are figures exactly like those of the temple of 



1 Nature, October 4, 1879. 



326 



THE RUINS OF CENTRAL AMERICA. 3 2 7 



the cross. Evidently this was 
a hieratic type, from which the 
artist was not allowed to de- 
part. 

The existence of the cross at 
Palenque, on one of the monu- 
ments of an earlier date than the 
introduction of Christianity, is 
not an isolated fact. Palacio, 
the judicial assessor, saw at Co- 
pan a cross, with one of its arms 
broken 1 ; the Jesuit Ruiz men- 
tions one in Paraguay ; Garci- 
lasso de la Vega, another at 
Cuzco ; and we have previously 
referred to several examples. 
The cross is supposed to have 
been looked upon as the sym- 
bol of the creative and fertilizing 
power of nature, and in several 
places was honored by sacrifices 
of quails, incense, and lustral 
water. 

We cannot leave the ruins of 
Palenque without mentioning a 
statue (fig. 128), remarkable for 
more than one reason. 2 The 
calm and smiling expression of 
the face resembles that of some 
of the Egyptian statues ; the 
head-dress is a little like that 
of the Assyrians ; there is a 
necklace around the neck ; the 




Fig. 128.— Statue from Pelanque. 



1 " Carta dirigada al Rey de Espafia afio 1576," published at Albany, with 
an English translation in 1S60. 

2 The height of the statue is 10 ft. 6 in., and there was another, a counterpart 
of it. They were evidently both intended to form pilasters, for one side of each 
was left in the rough ; they were discovered and figured by Waldeck. 



328 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



figure presses upon its bosom an instrument, and rests 
its left hand upon an ornament, the meaning of both 
of which it is difficult to imagine. The plinth of the statue 
has a cartouch with a hieroglyphical inscription, 1 probably 
giving the name of the god or hero to whom it was dedi- 
cated. 

There is a very distinct resemblance in some of these 
hieroglyphics to those of Egypt. We mention this without 
however trying to solve, by a few accidental resemblances, 
the great problem of the origin of races, still less to establish 
the existence of a connection between the inhabitants of 
Egypt and those of Central America at the comparatively 
recent date of the erection of the monuments of Palenque. 

Two races successively bore the name of Quiche. The 
old Quiches of Maya origin, to whom we owe the monu- 
ments of Copan and of Quirigua, and the Cakchiquel 
Quiches, who were probably descended from the first, but 
had been greatly modified by various Nahuatl influences. 
These latter still existed as a people at the time of the 
Spanish invasion ; they offered vigorous resistance to the 
Conquistadores, and their capital, Utatlan, was taken and 
destroyed. 

Copan is now a miserable village, a short distance from 
the ruins, famous alone for the excellence of its tobacco, 
which rivals that of Cuba. The ancient town was situated 
at the foot of the mountains separating Guatemala from 
Honduras, 2 on the Rio Copan, a tributary of the Motagua, 
which flows into the Bay of Honduras. Its ruins have long 
been overgrown by the dense vegetation of the forests, 
which can only be penetrated with axe in hand ; hence the 
oblivion in which they have so long been shrouded, and in 
which they still remain in spite of their great interest. They 

1 In the various hieroglyphics that we reproduce, the existence can be made 
out of several dots in regular order, separated by a stroke from the rest of the 
inscription ; this is perhaps a key for a future Champoliion. 

2 The ruins are situated in N. Lat. 14 0 45' and W.Long. 90 0 52'. Copan has 
sometimes been confounded with the town which in 1530 offered so heroic a 
resistance to Hernandez de Chiaves. 




32Q 



330 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



are first mentioned in a letter addressed in 1576 to King 
Philip II., by Diego de Palacio ; but it is to Stephens that 
we owe the only complete description in existence, and 
it is this description which is referred to by the Abbe 
Brasseur de Bourbourg. who visited Copan in 1S63 and 
1866. 1 • 

In their present state the ruins cover an area of 900 feet 
by 1.600. The walls, built of immense blocks of stone, and 
partly destroyed by the roots of trees which penetrate them 
everywhere, are twenty-five feet thick at their base, and in 
some places rise in terraces, and still preserve some traces of 
painting. The chief building, known under the name of the 
temple, is situated on the northwest of the enclosure ; its 
form is that of a truncated pyramid, the sides of which are six 
hundred and twenty-four feet high on the north and south, 
and eight hundred and nine on the east and west. The 
walls on the side facing the river are perpendicular, and 
vary from sixty to ninety feet in height ; on the other 
side they slope considerably. It is scarcely necessary to 
call attention to the resemblance of this building to the 
mounds of Mississippi and Ohio. The pyramids were dedi- 
cated to the gods of the Mayas, and it was on the platform 
crowning them, that these people attempted to honor their 
gods by sacrifices which were too often blood}-. 

Beyond the river fragments of walls, terraces, and pyra- 
mids, which cannot now be completely made out, stretch 
away in the direction of the forest : mountains of rubbish 
indicate the sites of buildings now crumbled, promising an 
ample harvest to future archaeologists. 2 In one of the 
rooms of the palace Col. Galindo discovered several 

3 Besides those whom we have already named, we may mention among the 
explorers, Francisco de Fuentes in 1700; his account has been published by 
Domingo Juarros, " A Statistical and Commercial Hist, of Guatemala," Lon- 
don, 1824, and by Col. Galindo in 1S32, Bull. Soc. Geog. de Paris, series 
II., 1S36, vol. 5, p. 267. Stephens and Catherwood visited the ruins in 1839. 
Their work is entitled, " Views of Ancient Monuments in Central America, 
Chiapas, and Yucatan." fol. New York, 1S44. Bancroft gives for Copan, as for 
Palenque, a very complete bibliography. 

'Galindo, "Am. Ant. Soc. Trans.," vol. II., p. 547. 



Fig. 130. — Statue found amongst the ruins of Copan. 
33i 



332 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



vases of red earth, containing bones mixed with lime. 3 
A great number of statues, obelisks, and columns, laden 
with sculpture and hieroglyphics, 2 form the most inter- 
esting discoveries made at Copan. We give an illustration 
of one of these statues (fig. 130), which seems to mark the 
zenith of Maya art, and in which we know not what is the 
most astonishing, the grotesqueness of the design, the rich- 
ness of the ornamentation, or the delicacy of the execution. 
We may also mention an alligator, holding in its mouth a 
figure with a human head and the extremities of an animal ; 
and a gigantic toad with feet ending in the nails of a cat. 

On the faces of one of the pyramids included in the perime- 
ter of the principal enclosure are rows of heads (fig. 131). 
Some of these are skulls, 3 others the heads of monkeys, 
which animals are very numerous in the neighborhood, and 
may have been the objects of the veneration, or even of the 
worship, of the inhabitants. A human face (fig. 132) found 
near the temple, also deserves to be reproduced. The in- 
habitants of Copan have left their portraits in the bas-reliefs, 
they have hewn them out of hard stone, they have modelled 
them in earthenware. The desire of perpetuating his 
memory is a feeling innate in man ; we meet with it in every 
clime and through every age. 

The whole of Yucatan is covered with interesting ruins. 
In the north are Izamal, Ake, Merida, Mayapan ; in the 
centre, Uxmal, Kabah, Labna, and nineteen other towns, the 
extent of which attest their importance ; and in the east, 
Chichen-Itza, one of the wonders of America. The south- 
ern districts, especially that bordering on Guatemala, are less 
known, but it has already been ascertained that brilliant dis- 
coveries are reserved to explorers in the province of Itur- 

1 Bull. Soc. Geog., vol. V., 2d series, Paris, 1836. 

2 These hieroglyphics resemble those of Palenque, and like the latter are still 
undeciphered. 

3 There are other examples of this style of decoration. At Nohpat a frieze 
has been found covered with skulls and cross-bones. Nohpat may have been 
a town as large as Uxmal ; but the ruins themselves have almost entirely dis- 
appeared. Stephens: " Yucatan, " vol. II., p. 348. 



THE RUINS OF CENTRAL AMERICA. 



333 



bide. " That extensive ruins yet lie hidden in these unex- 
plored regions can hardly be doubted ; indeed, it is by no 
means certain that the grandest cities, even in the settled 
and partially explored part of the peninsula, have yet been 
described." 1 Bancroft's prediction has been verified, and 
while this volume was in press, Charnay discovered, on the 
borders of the province of Pachualko, and of the country 
claimed by Guatemala, a town in ruins, containing monu- 
ments of the same style as those of Palenque. The origin 
and the name of this town are alike entirely unknown, and 
Charnay thought himself authorized to call it Lorillard City. 
The decoration consists chiefly of 
stucco, which is in a very bad con- 
dition ; the skilful explorer was, 
however, able to remove five bas- 
reliefs, and take casts from them. 
As at Palenque, we find a cruciform 
symbol ; but it resembles rather the 
Buddhist than the Christian cross. 2 
Most of these ruins have been 
described, so we content ourselves 
with giving a rapid summary of 
the most important of them. 

One preliminary remark must Fig, 131.— Head of a monkey on 
be made. There are notable a pyramid at Copan. 
differences between the monuments of Chiapas and those 
of Yucatan. " The mode of construction of Palenque," 
says M. Viollet-le-Duc, " did not consist, as at Chichen-Itza, 
or Uxmal, in facings of dressed stone in front of cyclopean 
masonry ; but in covering the masonry with coatings of 
■ornamented stucco and with large slabs." 

The character of the sculpture at Palenque is far from 
possessing the energy of that met with in the buildings of 
Yucatan. The types of the persons represented differ yet 
more. They have features very dissimilar to those of the 

Bancroft, /. c, vol. IV,, p. 14S. 

2 Hamy : Soc. of Geog., meeting of January 2, 1882. 




334 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



Aryan race at Palenque. They sensibly resemble it at 
Chichen-Itza. Lastly, it is only in the monuments of Yuca- 
tan that we can trace the influence of earlier construction in 
wood. 1 

" Nothing," adds Charnay, after his first exploration, 
" can vie with the richness, grandeur, and harmony of the 
buildings of Uxmal. It is not improbable that the founders 
of the ancient towns of Yucatan were descended from the 
inhabitants of Palenque, or at least that their civilization 
grew out of that much more ancient one." 




Fig. 132. — Fragment found near the temple of Copan. 

To these very just remarks we must add, that at Copan 
these differences can already be established. The sculp- 
tures, and the ornaments covering them, differ from those 
of Palenque, and more nearly approach those we are about 
to describe at Uxmal and at Chichen-Itza. Here, then, we 
have the point of union between two modes of structure, 
which differ in appearance alone. 

The origin of the name of Uxmal is unknown. The ruins 
are about thirty-five miles from Merida, and cover a consid- 

1 Viollet-le-Duc, Int., p. 97, after Charnay: "Cites et Ruines Ameri- 
caines." We must say, however, in regard to the reference he makes to the 
Aryans, that so far there is nothing to justify any one in connecting the Aryan 
with the American races. 



THE RUINS OF CENTRAL AMERICA. 



335: 



erable area. 1 The Casa del Gobernador (fig. 133), the most 
remarkable of all, rises from a natural eminence artificially 
enlarged by means of rubble masonry, and cut by three suc- 
cessive terraces ; the walls are of rough stone, cemented 
with very hard mortar. The Casa itself is three hundred 
and twenty-two feet long by thirty-nine wide and about 
twenty-six high. The interior includes a double corridor, 
the section of which recalls that which we have described at 
Palenque (fig. 125), and several rooms of very varying di- 
mensions. The walls of these rooms are of rough stone, 
without traces of painting or sculpture ; in one or two places 
only are there traces of plaster. The doors were surrounded 
with lintels of sapotilla wood, and one of these lintels, cov- 
ered with finely under-cut ornaments, is in the National 
Museum at Washington. 

All the richness of ornamentation was reserved for the 
external walls. At about one third of the height a frieze 
runs round the building, presenting a series of curved lines,, 
arabesques, and ornaments of every kind of execution, as 
capricious as it is grotesque. 2 Amongst these ornaments. 
Greek frets are prominent ; this type of ornament, so com- 
mon for centuries in Europe, furnishes yet another proof of 
the similarity of the genius of man, everywhere and at all 
times, as manifested in the least important of his works. 

Amongst these ornaments some elephant-trunks are sup- 
posed to have been made out ; this would be a curious fact, 3 
if true, for the elephant was certainly not living in America 
at the time of the erection of the monuments of Uxmal. 
His memory must then have been preserved in a permanent 
tradition, and it is possible that this may turn out to be an 

1 Waldeck : " Voy. pittoresque et arch, dans la Prov. de Yucatan," fol., 
Paris, 1838. Norman : " Rambles in Yucatan," New York, 1843. Baron von 
Friederickstahl : " Les Monuments du Yucatan," J 841. Charnay : " Cites et 
Ruines Americaines," Paris, 1863. Bancroft: "Native Races," vol. IV., p. 
149. Short : " North Americans of Antiquity," p. 347. 

2 Brasseur de Bourbourg : "Hist, des Nat. Civ. du Mexique et de l'Am. 
Centrale," vol. II., p. 23. 

3 We meet with this ornament at the Casa Grande of Zaya, at a short distance 
from Uxmal. It is possible that the sculptures may relate to the tapir. 



33^ PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 

indication of the Asiatic origin of the civilization under 
notice. 

Other animals also served as models to the workmen ; at 
the Casa dc Tortugnas the decoration consists of an imitation 
of palisades formed of round wooden posts. Tortoises in 
relief are the sole interruption to the horizontal line of the 
upper frieze. 

In front of the palace, a round stone several yards high, 




Fig. 133.— Casa del Gobernador, Uxmal. 



without ornaments, without even a trace of human workman- 
ship, rises like a column ; other similar stones were erected 
in various parts of the town. Some think these are phallic 
emblems, and hence conclude that the ancient people of 
Yucatan were devotees of the phallic cultus. But Brasseur 
de Bourbourg (/. c, vol. IV., p. 67) tells us that the natives 
call "these stone picotes and think they were intended to be 



THE RUINS OF CENTRAL AMERICA. 



337 



used as whipping-posts. Would it not be more natural 
to look upon these stones as gnomons, similar to those we 
shall have to describe later in speaking of the monuments 
of Peru ? 

The Casa de Monjas is looked upon as the most remark- 
able building of Central America. It presents considerable 
resemblance with the Casa del Gobernador. Here too we see 
the traditional mound, surmounted by a platform, on which 
rise four different buildings surrounding a court. 1 These 
buildings contain eighty-eight rather small rooms, at regular 
intervals, reminding us of the pueblos of New Mexico. The 
inside walls are bare and doors are altogether wanting. It 
is evident that the inhabitants, protected by their poverty, 
or perhaps by the sanctity of the spot, lived in complete 
security. 

The outer walls are adorned with a vast frieze in which 
the grandeur and originality of native art are alike displayed. 
" Every alternate door " says Charnay (p. 364), " is sur- 
rounded by a niche of marvellous workmanship ; these were 
to be occupied by statues. As for the frieze itself, it is 
a remarkable collection of pavillions in which curious figures 
of idols grow, as if by accident, out of the arrangement 
of stones, and remind us of the enormous sculptured heads 
of the palace of Chichen-Itza ; finely executed curved bands in 
stone serve as frames to them, and vaguely suggest hiero- 
glyphic characters ; then follows a succession of Greek frets 
of large size, alternating at the angles with squares and 
little rosettes of admirable finish." It is estimated that all 
these sculptures cover an area of twenty-four thousand 
square feet ; no two are alike, and the artist has everywhere 
been able to give free scope to his imagination. 

The western building is the most remarkable of this col- 
lection of structures but unfortunately a great part of it has 
crumbled away. The left wing, Casa de la Cidebra, still 

1 The measurements of these buildings given by different explorers differ con- 
siderably among themselves. Bancroft (vol. IV., p. 174) gives them all. We 
refer the reader to him. 



I 



333 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



standing, represents a huge rattlesnake, running all along^ 
the facade, the interlacing coils of its body serving as frames, 
to different panels. 1 

The northern building, rising from a platform about twenty 
feet high, dominates the whole court. 2 It was surrounded by 
thirteen towers, each seventeen feet in height, loaded with 
ornaments. Of these towers four only were still standing at: 
the time of Stephens' visit. On these towers two figures 
were noticed exhibiting priapism ; this fact would tend 
to confirm the existence of the phallic cultus at Uxmal. 

In some places, better protected against the inclemency 
of the weather, traces have been made out of pictures drawn 
with a rich and brilliant red. 3 

The purpose of the Casa de Monjas is quite unknown. It 
has, however, been supposed that it was the residence of 
Maya virgins, who, like the Roman vestals or the Peruvian 
Mamacunas, kept up the sacred fire. There is nothing 
either to confirm or to contradict this idea. Amongst the 
other buildings of Uxmal, we will mention the Casa del Adi- 
vino, with the outer walls painted in different colors, rising 
from a pyramid eighty-eight feet high, and built of rubble- 
set in mortar. The Casa del Enano, or "house of the 
dwarf," says Charnay, 11 consists of a structure with tw r o in- 
ner rooms and a sort of chapel below. This little piece is 
chiselled like a jewel." Waldeck (p. 96) says it is a master- 
piece of art and elegance. " Loaded with ornaments more 
rich, more elaborate and carefully executed than those of 
any other edifice in Uxmal." 4 Besides these there are 
the Tolokh-eis, or holy mountain, and the Kingsborough 
pyramid. At a short distance from the town are other ruins, 
dating probably from the same period, of the same style of 
architecture, and rising invariably from mounds which form 
a lower platform. This was evidently a general custom, and 
extended from the temple of the gods to the chief's houses. 

Charnay, /. c, p. 367. 
2 Waldeck, /. c, pi., XIII and XVIII. 
3 "Stephens : "Yucatan," vol. II., p. 30. 
* Stephens : "Yucatan," vol. I., p. 313 



THE RUINS OF CENTRAL AMERICA. 



339 



In describing the shell-heaps, mounds, and cliff-dwellings, 
we had frequent occasion to speak of the stone or bone in- 
struments or fragments of pottery bearing witness to the 
presence of man. We have no similar discovery to relate, 
either at Palenque, Copan, Uxmal, or the other towns of 
which we shall have to speak, and the excavations hitherto 
made have only yielded a few flints and still fewer fragments 




Fig. 134. — Portico at Kabah. 



of pottery. It is, however, impossible that such monuments 
could have been created without an important population 
and a long residence. Why have the weapons, implements, 
and vases disappeared ? Why do the graves of the builders 
of the monuments render up none of their bones ? No re- 
ply is as yet possible ; we can but collect facts, leaving those 
who shall come after us the task of drawing conclusions from 



340 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



them. It is likely, however, that the mere rubbish heaps 
might, as in civilized cities, have been removed to a distance 
for sanitary reasons. We must recollect that the ruins of 
an ordinary town would yield few weapons or implements 
to an excavator five centuries hence. 

The ruins of Kabah and Labna, very near those of Ux- 
mal, deserve a moment's attention. At Kabah a pyramid 
measuring 180 square feet at the base, and a portico (fig. 134) 
recalling a Roman structure, rise before the traveller. How 
did this souvenir of ancient Rome come to be in the midst 
of a solitude in the New World ? And how can we help ad- 
miring the marvellous unity of the genius of man, leading 
him constantly to arrive at identical results ? We can never 
weary of calling attention to this. It is one of the chief in- 
terests of our study. 1 

The buildings of Labna were no less remarkable than those 
of Uxmal ; but unfortunately they are in a state of ex- 
treme decay.' 2 The chief building was covered with stucco 
ornaments, which are breaking off and rapidly disappearing. 
One can still make out a row of skulls, some bas-reliefs 
representing human figures, and a globe of considerable di- 
ameter upheld by two men, one of whom is kneeling. 
All these figures retain some traces of color. 

At Zayi, the Casa Grande has three stories, each 
smaller than the one below it ; the first measures 265 
feet by 120; the second, 220 by 60; the third, 150 by 
18. A staircase thirty-two feet wide, and somewhat like 
those met with in various parts of Yucatan, leads up to 
the third story. 

Chichen-Itza, one of the few towns which has preserved 
its ancient Maya name, from chicken, opening of a well, and 
Itza, one of the chief branches of the Maya race, was a 
dependency of the Mayapan confederacy. On the destruc- 

1 Stephens, loc. cit., vol. I., p. 398. Baldwin: "Ancient America," New- 
York, 1872, p. 139. 

2 Stephens, loc. cit., vol. II., p. 16 : " The summits of the neighboring hills 
are" capped with gray, broken walls for many miles around." Norman : " Ram- 
bles in Yucatan," p. 150. 



THE RUINS OF CENTRAL AMERICA. 



341 



tion of the latter in the fifteenth century, it managed to 
maintain its independence, and it was not until two centuries 
after the conquest, on the 13th of March, 1697, that it was 
taken by the Spanish and given over to pillage ; from this 
period dates its complete destruction. 1 

Over an area of several miles we see nothing but artificial 
mounds, overturned columns, of which no less than 480 
bases have been counted, broken sculptures, rude colon- 
nades, the length of which astonishes us, and masses of 
rubbish, the last form assumed by the monuments that 
man, in his pride, thought he had built for eternity. 
Chichen was one of the chief religious centres of Yucatan ; 
hence its importance and the number and magnificence of 
its temples and buildings. 2 Amongst those still standing, 
we may mention the circus, castle, palace of the nuns, the 
Caracol or spiral staircase, and the Chichanchob, or the Red 
house, as they are now called. 

The circus was probably nothing but a gymnasium, in 
which the young men met for trials of strength, skill, and 
agility. The monument formerly included two parallel 
pyramids, extending about 350 feet. That on the left, still 
well preserved, is covered with paintings. These represent 
processions of warriors or of priests, some carrying weapons ; 
some offerings ; they have black beards, and they wear 
strange head-dresses on their heads, and wide tunics on their 
shoulders. The colors employed are black, red, yellow, and 
white. The bas-reliefs are remarkable ; all the faces are of 
the present Yucatan type, and contrast strongly with the 
pointed heads and retreating foreheads represented at 
Palenque, and which are said to be still met with amongst 
the inferior mountain races. 

1 Landa, Bishop of Merida, who died in 1579 : " Relacion de las Cosas de 
Yucatan," p. 340. Friedrickstahl : " Nouv. Annales des Voyages," 1841, p. 
300,^/ seq. Stephens: " Yucatan," vol. II., p. 2S2. Norman: "Rambles 
in Yucatan," p. 104. Charnay, /. c, p. 339. Baron Friederichstahl visited the 
ruins in 1840, Stephens and Norman in 1842, Charnay, in 1858. 

2 " A city which I hazard little in saying must have been one of the largest 
the world has ever seen." Norman: " Rambles," p. 10S. 



342 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



The palace of the nuns rests upon a base of masonry 32 
feet high, and 160 by 112 wide. The building, which is 
reached by a wide staircase, was two stories high ; the walls 
are ornamented with rich sculptures, similar to those of 
Uxmal, and the door has an ornamentation of stone tur- 
rets, which we cannot better compare than with Chinese or 
Japanese structures. A protestant missionary, Hardy, has 
(" Indian Monachism," p. 122) called attention to the resem- 
blance between the buildings of Chichen and the topes or 
dagobas of the Buddhists. 




Fig. 135. — Jamb ornament of a door of the castle at Chichen-Itza. 

Inside is a room forty-seven feet long, with walls coated 
with plaster, on which can be made out, though they have 
suffered greatly from damp, some men crowned with 
feathers. 

The name of castle has been given to a pyramid the base 
of which measures 197 feet by 202. Its height is 75 feet, 
and it ends in a platform reached by a staircase, enclosed by 
a balustrade, covered with serpents' heads ; from this plat- 
form rises a building 49 feet by 43, the chief door of which 
faces northward. The jambs of this door are of stone and 



THE RUINS OF CENTRAL AMERICA. 



343 



covered with sculptures. We reproduce one of these bas- 
reliefs (fig. 135), which may give an idea of the face and the 
head-dress of the inhabitants. The ornament fastened to the 
nose is particularly characteristic. The internal arrange- 
ment, of which the ground-plan (fig. 136) enables us to 
judge, differs from any thing we have yet noticed. 

The Chichanchob, 1 or Red house, (fig. 137) is the best-pre- 
served monument of Chichen. It includes only one dwell- 
ing, placed on a pyramid of moderate height, with three 
doors facing west, lighting a gallery of the same height as 
the structure. This gallery gives access to three rooms 
which are only lighted through their doors. Charnay, who 
mentions this, adds that he 
has never noticed any win- 
dows in the numerous ruins 
of Yucatan visited by him. 

The Caracol is a circular 
building only twenty-two feet 
in diameter. The inside re- 
calls the estufas met with 
among the Cliff Dwellers, and 
consists of a mass of masonry 
with a very narrow double 
corridor. The building rises 
from two artificial terraces 
placed one upon the other. 
The lower terrace, according to Stephens, measures two hun- 
dred and twenty-three feet by one hundred and fifty, the up- 
per terrace thirty feet by fifty-five. A flight of twenty steps, 
forty-five feet in length, leads from the first to the second, 
and is ornamented with a balustrade which represents inter- 
laced serpents. The serpent plays an important part in the 
architecture of Chichen-Itza. We meet it at every turn, and 
it is not difficult to see in it a religious symbol. 

We cannot exaggerate the richness of the sculptures ; the 




Fig. 136. — Ground plan of the castle 
of Chichen-Itza. a, square pillars 
in the centre of the principal room. 
b, columns supporting the northern 
door. 



1 We do not know why the Indians give to this building the name of 
la Carcel, the prison. 



344 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



church built for the Indians is filled with bas-reliefs taken 
from these ruins. The paintings are even more numerous 
than the sculptures ; everywhere can be made out long pro- 
cessions of men and animals, defiles, battles, struggles be- 
tween a man and a tiger or a serpent, trees, houses. 1 One 
of these paintings on the walls of the circus represents 
a boat somewhat resembling a Chinese junk, and is the only 
example thus far known of the mode of navigation of these 
ancient people. Stephens says, speaking of this boat, " that 
it is the greatest gem of aboriginal art which, on the whole 
continent of America, now survives." 




Fig. 137.- — Chichanchob at Chichen-Itza. 

Nor are hieroglyphics wanting. In form they resemble 
those of Copan. Like the latter they are still undeciphered, 
and we know of but one exception, which we quote with all 
due reservation, and then only since it has been published by 
the authority of an important scientific body, the American 
Antiquarian Society. 2 

1 Stephens: "Yucatan," vol. II., pp. 303, 305. 

3 Salisbury : "The Mayas, the Sources of their History," Worcester, 1S77. 
"Maya Arch.," Worcester, 1879. Short: "North Americans," pp. 396, 
et seq^ Letter of Dr. Le Plongeon, of Jan. 15, 1878. Proc. Am. Antiq. Soc, 
Oct. 21, 1878. 



THE RUINS OF CENTRAL AMERICA. 



345 



Before relating this discovery it will be well to tell 
the legend on which it is founded. Chaak Mool, also known 
under tlje name of Balam, the tiger chief, was one of three 
brothers who shared between them the government of 
Yucatan. He had married Kinich Katmo. a woman of 
marvellous beauty, who inspired Aak, one of her brothers-in- 




Fig. 138. — Bas-relief found by Dr. Le Plongeon at Chichen-Itza. 

law, with ardent love. This Aak, to obtain her hand, 
did not hesitate to have her husband assassinated ; but 
Kinich remained faithful to the memory of Chaak, and 
her conjugal piety led her to have his statue made, and 
to adorn her palace with paintings representing the chief 
events in his life and the sad scene of his death. In one of 



.346 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



these paintings Aak holds in his hand three spears, which 
symbolize the three wounds inflicted on his brother. The 
Assyrian type is supposed by some to be recognizable in the 
three personages who are represented three quarters of the 
size of life. Beside them we see three tall men, with 
rather small heads, thick lips, and woolly hair, in which some 
see examples of the negro type. 

Dr. Le Plongeon, who visited the ruins of Chichen-Itza 
in 1875 tells us that he succeeded in deciphering part of the 
hieroglyphics accompanying the figures ; from which he 
learned that the tomb of Chaak Mool was to be found at a 




Fig. 139. — Statue of Chaak Mool, found at Chichen-Itza. 

place pointed out, about 435 yards from the palace. Ex- 
cavations were undertaken, and succcessively brought to 
light several bas-reliefs, representing feline animals or birds 
of prey (fig. 138); a figure in the form of a tiger with a 
human face ; about twenty feet lower down a stone urn, 
with a terra-cotta lid, filled with ashes which no one seems 
to have thought of analyzing; and lastly the statue of a man 
reclining upon a sepulchral stone (fig. 139). The type of 
the face, the costume, the head-dress, do not resemble those 
seen, either at Chichen-Itza or in the other towns of Yuca- 
tan ; and to specify one point only, the sandals are like those 



THE RUINS OF CENTRAL AMERICA. 



347 



found on the feet of the Guancho mummies of the Canary 
Islands. 

Dr. Le Plongeon was not to reap the fortunate result of his 
excavations ; the Mexican Government took possession of 
the statue, which is now in the National Museum of Mexico. 

This is not an isolated discovery ; several similar statues 
are known, one of which, also part of the collections 
of the National Museum, was found in Mexico itself 1 ; 
another comes from Tlascala ; and a smaller Chaak Mool 
from Merida. This recurrence of the same figure at 
different places, at a distance from each other, leads 
us to suppose that it represents not a legendary king of 
Chichen-Itza, but an as yet unknown divinity. This is 
Charnay's feeling. " The statue of Yucatan," he tells us, 
" cannot represent a king, for it is impossible to admit that 
a king of Yucatan was venerated as a god at Mexico or at 
Tlascala." 2 

Man)' pages would be required to describe all the innumer- 
able ruins covering Yucatan 3 ; worthy of mention is a 
gigantic head, the Car a Gigantesca (fig. 140) which is re- 
markable for its expression ; it is made of a kind of coarse 
rubble masonry, the blocks of which have been skilfully 
turned to account by the sculptor in forming the cheeks, 
mouth, nose, and eyes ; the head has been finished in a 
stucco so hard as to have lasted for centuries. This head is 
seven feet high. Charnay mentions another, of the same 
cyclopean character, surrounded by strange ornaments ; it is 
larger than the one we reproduce, being twelve feet high. 
In a second journey Charnay discovered a bas-relief, which 
he characterizes as more beautiful than any that have as 

1 Letter from the Rev. John Butler, of the 10th of October, 1878. Butler 
looks upon the statue found at Mexico as more ancient than those of Chichen ; 
but as he does not give the grounds for his opinion, we cannot do more than 
quote it. See also Short, /. c, p. 399. Revue d'Ethnographie, vol. I., p. 163. 

2 Revue d Ethnographic, vol. I., p. 167. 

3 We should perhaps mention Ake, with its cyclopean walls, made of huge 
blocks of rough stone, which Stephens, one of the few explorers who have 
visited them, considers the most ancient ruins of the district. (" Yucatan," vol. 
I., p. 127. 



348 



PRE-HIS TORIC A M ERICA . 



yet been found. The chief subject, unfortunately damaged,, 
represents a feline animal with a human head, perfectly 
modelled. On the left of the animal are some grotesque 
decorations, reminding us of the ornaments of Palenqueand 
Uxmal. 1 The head figured was discovered at Izamal, one 
of the sacred towns of Yucatan, where Zamna, the compan- 
ion and disciple of Votan, is said to be buried. According 
to the accounts of the Indians, the prophet Zamna was 
buried beneath several pyramids. That on the northeast 




Fig. 140. — Cara Gigantesca found at Izamal. 

(Kab-ul, the industrious hand) contains his right hand. 
The head is buried beneath the northern pyramid (Kinich- 
Kakmo the sun with rays of fire). The heart is beneath the 
third, from which now rises a church and Franciscan convent. 
This pyramid is called Ppapp-hol-chak, the house of heads 
and lightnings. 

It is to Zamna that the Yucatecs ascribed all their pro- 
gress ; tradition attributes to him the invention of hiero- 
glyphic writing, and he was the first to teach the people to 
give a name to men and to things. 



1 Letter from Merida of the 28th, Jan. 1882. Rev. d'Ethn., vol. I., p. 160. 



THE RUINS OF CENTRAL AMERICA. 



349 



Besides the Cara Gigantesca, Izamal possesses several 
pyramids. One of them is from 700 to 800 feet long, and 
contains, like the pyramids of Egypt, several chambers ; 
it is considered the most important building in the district. 1 
These pyramids are rapidly disappearing; Bishop Landa 2 
counted eleven or twelve at the time of the conquest, 
and even then the temples crowning them were in ruins. 

The accounts of Spanish historians 3 leave no doubt of 
the existence of roads, made for the convenience of travel- 
lers, and above all to give access to the religious centres. 
Some of them extended beyond the limits of Yucatan, 
and stretched into the neighboring kingdoms of Guate- 
mala, Chiapas, and Tabasco. Some of these roads were 
paved ; such were the Calzadas spoken of by Cogolludo and 
Bishop Landa, which led to Chichen-Itza, Uxmal, Izamal, 
and to Tihoo, the ruins of which have been used to build the 
modern towm of Merida. These last highways measure 
from between seven and eight yards in width ; they are 
made of blocks of stone, covered with very well-preserved 
mortar and a layer of cement about two inches thick. The 
rivers were spanned by bridges of masonry ; Clavigero, 4 who 
traversed the whole of Mexico during the last century, speaks 
of having seen still standing, in many places, the massive piers 
intended to support them. 

We will close what we have to say of the Maya monu- 
ments with one general observation : Their number and 
their dimensions, the taste governing their design and the 
richness of their ornamentation, strike even the most super- 
ficial observer. The progress made by these little known 
races in ceramic art, the manufacture of textile fabrics and 
embroidery, and all the technical or industrial arts is not less 
remarkable. 

There is no doubt that, at the time of the arrival of the 

1 Stephens : "Yucatan," vol. II., p. 434. 

2 " Relacion de las cosas de Yucatan," p. 326. 

3 Landa, /. c. , p. 344. Cogolludo : " Hist, de Yucatan," p. 193. Charnay : 
" Cites et Ruines Americaines," p. 321. 

4 " Storia antica del Messico," vol. II., p. 371. 



35o 



PRE-HIS TORIC A M ERICA . 



Spaniards, the Indians were in some respects superior to the 
Conquistadores ; but the latter had horses and gunpowder, 
and were, moreover, endowed with a superior energy. The 
Indians succumbed in an unequal struggle, and rapidly be- 
came the prey of the avaricious strangers, incapable even of 
understanding the culture they were about to destroy. 

The buildings erected by the Xahuas were, according to 
historians, more important than those of the Mayas. We 
have described the courts of' the rulers of Tenotchitlan and 
Tezcuco : their dwellings probably corresponded with the mag- 
nificence of their temples, but have perished. The rage of 
the Spaniards, irritated as they were by an unexpected re- 
sistance, together with the gloomy fanaticism of the priests 
and monks accompanying the army, were the chief causes of 
a destruction for ever irreparable. The ruins that still re- 
main standing, sole witnesses of the past, add to our regrets. 
It would be impossible to describe or even to enumerate 
them all. We therefore select from them such as may serve 
as a type of Nahuatl architecture, and best help us to un- 
derstand the manners and religion of the Xahuas. 

The pyramid of Cholula 1 is situated in a miserable village, 
about ten miles from Puebla de los Angeles. A magnificent 
temple, dedicated according to some to the sun, according 
to others to Ouetzacoatl, rose from the platform crowning 
the pyramid, but it was entirely destroyed by Cortes, after a 
battle which took place at the very foot of the monument. 
The pyramid still standing measures 1,440 feet square, and 
covers an area nearly double the extent of that of the great 
pyramid of Cheops ; its height, according to Humboldt, was 
177 feet, 2 and the summit was reached . by four successive 

1 Humboldt, " Essai pol. sur le roy. de la Nouvelle Espagne," Paris, 1811, 
p. 239, and " Vues des Cordilleres," Paris, 1S16, p. 96. Dupaix : " Prem. 
Exp." Kingsborough, vol. V. and VI. Jones: " Smith. Cont.,"vol. XXII. 
Cla\pgero : "St. Ant. del Messico," vol. II., p. 33. Clavigero visited Cholula 
in 1744 ; Humboldt, in 1803. Bancroft (vol. IV., p. 471) gives as usual a very 
complete bibliography. 

2 Mlayer ("Mexico as it Was," p. 26) says 204 feet; Tylor : "Anahuac," 
205 feefcv 



THE PEOPLE OE CENTRAL AMERICA. 



351 



terraces. Here the material employed was no longer dressed 
stones., as in Yucatan, but adobes about fifteen inches long, 
similar to those employed by the Pueblo Indians, cemented 
with a very hard mortar mixed with little stones and even 
fragments of pottery. A German traveller 1 adds that the 
four faces were coated with a cement similar to that in use 
at the present day. 

Excavations have shown the regularity of the building, 
and have brought to light a tomb of slabs of stones, sup- 
ported by posts of cedar wood. Two skeletons rested in 
this tomb, and beside them lay two basalt figures, various or- 
naments of little value, and some fragments of pottery. 
The pyramid of Cholula may therefore have been a tomb ; 
but if so, its ostentatious structure was as powerless here as 
in Egypt to preserve the bones of its inmates from the profa- 
nation so much dreaded. There are, however, some doubts 
as to the purpose of the pyramid. The skeletons were not 
placed in the centre of the monument, into which the ex- 
plorers were not able to enter. It has therefore been sup- 
posed that they were those of slaves, killed at the time of 
the erection of the monuments. M. Bandelier looks upon 
the buildings of Cholula as having been chiefly defensive 
works. 2 

According to certain legends, of which traces are met with 
amongst the natives, this pyramid was erected in expecta- 
tion of a fresh deluge. Father Duran gives another version 3 ; 
that men, dazzled by the glory of the sun, had tried to erect 
a structure which should reach up to the firmament ; the in- 
habitants of heaven, indignant at such audacity, destroyed 
the building and dispersed the builders. 

Historic data are neither more serious nor more precise 
than legends. The dates of the erection of the pyramids 
vary from the seventh to the tenth century of our era. 
Cholula was then an important town in the power of the 

1 Heller : " Reisen in Mexiko," Leipzig, 1S53, p. 131. 

2 " Arch. Hist, of America," Nov., 1SS1. 

3 " Hist. Ant. de la Nueva Espafia," vol. I., chap. I. (The history was 
written about 15S5.) 



352 



PRE- HIS TOPIC A ME RICA . 



Toltecs, so that it is to them that the building under notice 
must be due. 

Xochicalco, seventy-five miles northwest of Mexico, is cer- 
tainly one of the most peculiar monuments of the province. 1 

In the centre of the plain rises a conical eminence, the 
base of which, of oval form, is two miles in circum- 
ference and the height of which is variously estimated 
at from 300 to 400 feet. Two tunnels, pierced in 
the flank of the hill, open on the north ; the first has 
been penetrated for a distance of eighty-two feet, where 
the explorers were obliged to turn back. The second 
tunnel pierces the calcareous mass of the hill, as a gal- 
lery nine feet and a half high, which extends by various 
branches to a length of several hundred feet. A pavement, 
no less than a foot and a half thick, covers the ground ; the 
sides are strengthened with walls of masonry, wherever such 
works are necessary, then coated with cement and painted 
with red ochre. The principal gallery leads to a room 
measuring eighty feet, and the architects' practical knowl- 
edge of their art was such that they were able to contrive 
two piers to give more solidity to the roof. In one of the 
corners of the room opens a little rotunda, six feet in diam- 
eter, excavated, as is the room itself, in the rock, and of which 
the dome, in the form of a pointed arch, greatly struck the 
first explorers, who were not at all prepared to find in the 
heart of Mexico a specimen of Gothic art. 

The whole of the outside of the hill is covered with a 
revetment of masonry, forming five successive terraces, sev- 
enty feet high, upheld by walls crowned with parapets. Du- 
paix relates that the summit was reached by a path eight 

1 Alzate y Ramirez visited Xocliicalco in 1777, and, in 1791, published a 
very inexact account of his discoveries, under the title of " Descripcion de las 
Antiguedades de Xochicalco." Dupaix and Castaneda visited the ruins in 
1831, and the Revista Mexicana (vol. I., p. 539) gives the result of a more 
recent exploration, made at the cost of the Mexican Government. Lastly, 
among other explorers, we name : Humboldt, " Vues des Cordilleres." vol. I., 
p. 98. Tylor : " Anahuac," p. 189. Nebel : "Viaje pittoresco y arqueo- 
logico sobre la rep. Mejicana." 



THE RUINS OF CENTRAL AMERICA. 



353 



feet wide. The platform measures three hundred and 
twenty-eight feet by two hundred and eighty-five. A tem- 
ple (fig. 141) measuring sixty-five feet from east to west, 
and fifty-eight from north to south, rose from this platform, 
in honor of an unknown god ; the building, which was of 
rectangular form, was constructed of blocks of porphyritic 
granite, 1 laid without mortar, and with such art that the 
joints are scarcely visible. It is impossible to estimate the 




Fig. 141. — Ruins of the temple of Xochicalco, Mexico, 
labor required to take these blocks from a distant quarry 
and place them at the height they occupy. 

In 1755 there were five stories, one behind the other, to 
the temple ; it was crowned by a stone which could be used as 
a seat, and which was covered, as was the rest of the building, 
with an ornamentation which must have b een as difficult to 

1,4 Porfirdo granitico," Revista Mex. t vol. I., p. 54S. " Basalto porfirico," 
Nebel. " Basalt," Lowenstern, Mex., p. 209. " La calidad de piedra de esta 
magnifica arquitectura est de piedra vitrificabile," Alzate, /. c, p. S. 



\ 



354 



PRE-HIS TORIC A M ERICA . 



execute as it is to describe. An unfortunately very inexact 
model on reduced scale of this monument figured in the in- 
ternational exhibition of 1867. It was reproduced in the 
Illustrated London News, of June 1, 1867. It is fair to add 
that the destruction of Xochicalco is not to be imputed to 
the Spaniards ; the author of this act of vandalism was a 
neighboring land-holder, who wanted to use the stone for 
building a factory. 

The long wars which desolated Anahuac, and which were 
in truth, the normal state of the country, had led to the 
erection of vast defensive works, and traces of these fortifi- 
cations have been made out at Huatusco, in the province of 
Vera Cruz, whence they stretched for a very great distance 
northward. Centla appears to have been one of the chief for- 




FiG. 142. — Pyramid at Centla. 



tified places; ruins cover the plain ; but they are gradually dis- 
appearing, destroyed by the inhabitants. A neighboring for- 
est hides several pyramids, which, thanks to its protection, 
have remained standing. 1 We reproduce one of them, which 
may serve as a type (fig. 142). The walls are of dressed 
stone, cemented with lime mortar ; but lime was doubtless 
costly, and all the inside of the walls is of rubble, laid in 
clay. Niches are prepared in various places to receive stat- 
ues, or symbols of the protective deities. 

These pyramids are certainly the most striking examples 
of ancient American architecture. It is from truncated pyra- 
mids that the teocallis or palaces rise at Palenque as at 
Copan, in Yucatan and Honduras as in Anahuac ; the trav- 

^Sartorius, " Soc. Mex. Geog. Boletin, 2 a epoca," vol. I., p. 821; vol. II.,. 
p. 148. 



THE RUINS OF CENTRAL AMERICA. 



355 



eller meets with them as far as the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, 
where two of them near the town of Tehuantepec are es- 
pecially noticeable ; the larger measures one hundred and 
twenty feet by fifty-five at the base, and sixty-six by thirty 
at the platform crowning it ; a staircase no less than thirty 
feet wide leads to this platform. 

Local differences may be observed, the cause of which is 
most often the difference of the materials at the disposal of 
the builders ; but everywhere the primitive type is retained, 
a development connecting itself with the mounds, which oc- 
cur from the borders of the Ohio and the Mississippi into 
Florida, and thence into more southern regions, where they 
remain last witnesses of the migrations of these races. 

Such are the chief ruins that recall the Nahuas. The 
carelessness, the fanaticism, and the avarice of the conquerors 
have rapidly destroyed monuments the magnificence of 
which is alleged to have dazzled the Spaniards. These 
monuments may be judged by our description of a few of 
them, but it is probable that the exuberance of Spanish ad- 
jectives and the natural tendency of travellers to exaggerate 
the features of their discoveries are responsible for much 
that has passed into history. 

Tula, 1 the former capital of the Toltecs, is now represented 
by a poor and miserable village, thirty miles to the north- 
west of Mexico. Of its past grandeur it has preserved noth- 
ing but its name. " Five centuries before the conquest," 
says Sahagun, 2 " this great and celebrated town shared the 
adverse fortunes of Troy." The ruins that existed have in 
their turn disappeared, and excavations executed in 1873 
yielded nothing but a monstrous idol and two basalt columns. 
One of these (fig. 143), covered with ornaments finely exe- 

1 There are several places of the name of Tula, Tulha, and Tulau ; hence a 
serious difficulty. (" Popol.-Vuh, pp. LXXXV. and CCLIV.) Tulawas.it 
is said, destroyed by the Chichimecs in 1064, and the inhabitants took refuge at 
Cholulan, the city of exiles. The latter town in its turn rose- to importance 
rapidly, for the Spaniards, we are told, gave it the name of Rome on account of 
the splendor of its monuments. 

2 " Hist, de la cosas de Nueva Espana," prol. al. lib. VIII. 



356 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



cuted, is interesting, as it shows us the mode of jointing with 
tenon and mortice employed by these people, who were al- 
ready well advanced in their knowledge of technical pro- 
cesses. 1 Other ruins of little importance are met with in the 
neighborhood ; but we learn nothing about the ancient Tula. 
Such was the state of things when recent discoveries re- 
vealed facts which, should they be confirmed, will prove of 
capital importance to the ancient history of America. 

Charnay, in the execution of a mission entrusted to him 
by the French Government, went to Zula and 
superintended the excavation of some tumuli, 
mountains of rubbish probably, which had cov- 
ered for many centuries the relics of the ancient 
Toltecs. One dwelling thus exhumed consisted 
of twenty-four rooms, two cisterns, twelve cor- 
ridors, and fifteen little staircases " of extraordi- 
nary architecture and thrilling interest," enthu- 
siastically exclaims the fortunate explorer. 2 

" This is not all," he adds ; " in the midst of 
fragments of pottery of all kinds, from the 
coarsest used in building, such as bricks, tiles, 
water-pipes, to the most delicate for domestic 
use, I have picked up enamels, fragments of 
crockery and porcelain, and more extraordinary 
still, the neck of a glass bottle iridescent like 
ancient Roman glass." Fig. 143.— Col- 

Amongst the debris lay the bones of some umn from Tula ' 
gigantic ruminants (perhaps bisons ?), the tibia of which 
were about one foot three inches long by four inches thick, 

1 " Soc. Mex. Geog. Boletin," 3d epoca, vol. I., p. 185. "The ToLtecs 
used indifferently stones mixed in mud or in mortar for the interior of the walls, 
and cement and lime for coating them. They employed burnt brick and hewn 
stone for the inside coating, brick and stone for the stairs, and wood for the 
roofs. They were acquainted with the pilaster, which we have found in their 
houses ; with the engaged column, caryatides, and the free column, and we 
can think of few architectural devices that they did not know and use." 
Charnay, " Bull. Soc. Geog.," Nov., 1881. 

2 - Letter to the Trait d' Union of the 28th of August, 1880. "Archives des 
Missions scientifiques." vol. VII. 






THE RUINS OF CENTRAL AMERICA. 357 

the femur at the upper end about six inches by four inches. 

Admitting that there is no mistake, these facts are abso- 
lutely new, for previously it was considered that the early 
Americans did not know how to make either glass or porce- 
lain, and that before the arrival of the Conquistadors none 
of our domestic animals were known in America, but that 
the oxen, horses, and sheep living there at the present day 
are all descended from ancestors imported from Europe. 

The excavations have also yielded some little chariots 
that Charnay thinks were the toys of children. Now, sup- 
posing these toys to have been a reproduction in miniature 
of objects used by men, we must conclude that the Toltecs 
employed carriages, and that their use was not only given 
up, but absolutely unknown on the arrival of Cortes. 1 

These discoveries, we can but repeat, greatly modify the 
conclusions hitherto accepted. But are these really original 
productions? May they not have been imported? This is 
after all doubtful, and new proofs are needed to establish 
certainly that the objects discovered really date from the 
pre-Columbian period before we can admit that in the elev- 
enth century the Toltecs possessed domestic animals, that 
they knew how to make and fashion porcelain, glass, perhaps 
even iron, for Charnay also collected in his excavations sev- 
eral iron implements. He himself expresses an idea that 
the material of which they were made dates from the Span- 
ish period. He does not explain why he makes an excep- 
tion on this point with regard to the glass and porcelain 
objects. 

It is strong evidence against their prehistoric character 
that all these elements of an advanced civilization must 
have disappeared without leaving any trace even in the 
memory of man. It is probable, therefore, that the differ- 
ent objects brought to light by Charnay are later than the 
Spanish conquest, and it will be wise to reserve our opinion 
with regard to them until more complete information can 
be obtained. 



1 Revue des Questions scientifiques, Oct., 1881, p. 640. 



358 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



No monument of Mexico has remained standing; there is 
nothing to recall the power of the Aztecs ; pyramids, pal- 
aces, teocallis, all have disappeared ; the ruins themselves 
are buried beneath the accumulated dust of three centuries ; 
and we are ignorant of the very position of the edifices over 
the grandeur of which Spanish writers expatiate. 1 To get 
some idea of what were the buildings of the Aztecs, we 
must reproduce the description of the great temple erected 
by Ahiutzotl in honor of the god Huitzilopochtli. 

This temple occupied the centre of the town ; it was situ- 
ated in the middle of an enclosure surrounded with walls 
which extended for a length of 4,800 feet. These 
were built in rubble-stone laid in mortar, coated with 
plaster, polished on both faces, surrounded by turrets and 
machicolations of spiral form, and ornamented with numer- 
ous sculptures, chiefly representing serpents. Hence the 
name by which they were known, Coetpantli, or walls 
of serpents. 2 On each side was a building, the lowest story 
of which served as a portal to the interior of the court. 

On entering one found one's self opposite the great temple, 
which formed a regular parallelogram of three hundred and 
seventy-five feet by three hundred, and which like the other 
teocallis rose in five terraces, each built smaller than 
the other below it. The walls were of rubble, mixed with 
clay and beaten earth, covered with large slabs of stone 
carefully cemented and encased by a thick coating of gyp- 
sum. The upper platform, which was reached by a flight of 
three hundred and forty steps, passed round each of the ter- 
races in succession, and was surmounted by two towers 

1 Bernal Diaz : " Hist, verdaclera de la Conquista de la Nueva Espana," 
fol. 70. ; " Relatione fatta per un gentil'huomo del signor F. Cortese." 
Ramusio : " Navigationi et Viaggi," vol. III., fols. 307, 309. Torquemada : 
" Mon. Ind.," vol. II., p. 197. Cortes : " Cartas y Relacionesf" p. 106. 
Sahagun : "Hist. Gen.," vol. I., p. 197. Gomara : "Hist, de Mex.," fol. 
118. Las Casas: "Hist. Apol.," chs. XLIX., LI., CXXIV. Tezozomoc : 
"Hist. Mex.," vol. L, p. 151. Amongst modern writers may be consulted 
Prescott's " Hist, of the Conquest of Mexico " and Tylor's " Anahuac." 

2 *" Era labradade piedras grandes a manera de culebras asidas las unas a las 
otras." Acosta : " Hist, de las Yndias," p. 333. 



THE RUINS OF CENTRAL AMERICA. 



359 



<of three stories each, their total height being fifty-six feet. 
The two upper stories were of exceptional construction, be- 
ing in wood, and could only be reached by means of ladders. 
The roof was also of wood, and consisted of a cupola 
upheld by columns painted alternately black and red. 

The sancturies of the gods were in the lower story of the 
teocalli ; on the right was that of Huitzilopochtli, and 
on the left that of his half brother Tezcatlipoca. The statue 
of the former was exhumed almost intact in 1790; the 
Indians hastened to cover it with flowers. This is a strange 
fact, especially when we contrast it with the indifference to 
the past noticed among the present Indians of North 
America. The gigantic statues of Huitzilopochtli and 
Tezcatlipoca were hidden from the eyes of the faithful by 
magnificent draperies, and at their feet was set up the 
sacrificial stone, said by Clavigero to have been of green 
jasper, on which so many unfortunate victims perished. Las 
Casas is enthusiastic even to exaggeration over the internal 
richness of the temple. Bernal Diaz, who is probably more 
veracious, says that the walls and the floors were streaming 
with human blood, and exhaled an odor so fetid that the visit- 
ors were quickly put to flight. 1 In all the temples and before 
all the idols burned the sacred fire, which was always scrupu- 
lously kept up, for its extinction threatened the country with 
great danger. From the top of the principal teocalli could 
be counted six hundred braziers, which were burning day 
and night. 

Forty smaller temples, mostly crowning pyramids, rose 
from different points of the sacred enclosure, like satellites 
of the greater gods to whom the chief temple was con- 
secrated. That of Tlatoc was reached by a flight of fifty 
steps 2 ; that of Quetzacoatl was circular and crowned by a 
dome ; .the door was low, and represented the mouth of a 
serpent ; the worshippers who came to adore their god had 
to pass through this half-open mouth which seemed ready 

1 " Hist, de la Conq.," fol. 7. 

2 Oviedo : " Hist. Gen. y Nat. de las Indias," vol. III., p. 302. 



360 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



to devour them. 1 The IUiuicatlican was dedicated to the 
planet Venus, and a captive had to be sacrificed at the very 
moment of the appearance of that planet above the horizon. 
In accordance with a rather original idea an immense cage 
was placed in one of the teocallis to receive the statues of 
foreign gods, so that they might not be able to use their 
liberty for succoring their worshippers. 2 

The Quauhxicalco was an immense ossuary where the 
bones of victims were accumulated. The skulls were set aside 
and put in the Tzempantli outside the enclosure near the west- 
ern gate. This Tzempantli was an immense oblong pyramid 
formed by human heads enshrined in the masonry. Two 
columns dominated the platform of the pyramid, and these 
columns were entirely composed of heads taking the place 
of stones. 3 When the victim was a chief the head was set 
up in its natural condition, and nothing could exceed the 
horror and disgust inspired by these grinning dead faces. 
The Spaniards alleged that there were as many as one 
hundred and thirty-six thousand of these heads thus 
exposed. 

The court was the largest portion of the enclosure. It 
was here that an immense crowd collected to assist at the 
sacrifice and at the combats of the gladiators. Here, too, 
were the lodgings of thousands of priests, women, and chil- 
dren, whose duty it was to take care of the temples and the 
sacred precincts; according to Bernal Diaz, however great 
the number of visitors, the enclosure was kept clean with 
such care that it would be impossible to discover in it so 
much as a single straw. 

Tezcuco has disappeared like its ancient and eager rival \ 
its stones, bas-reliefs, and sculptures have been used to build 
the houses of the modern town, and a few heaps of now 
shapeless adobes and rubbish of all kinds here and there are 
the sole mementoes at the present day of the past splendor 

i Toiquemada : "Mon. Ind.,"vol. II., p. 145. 
2 Torquemada, quoted above, vol. II., p. 147. 

3 -Warden: " Recherches sur les Ant. de l'Am. du Nord., Ant. Mex.," vol. II.. 
p. 66. 



THE RUINS OF CENTRAL AMERICA. 



361 



of a town which contained one hundred and forty thousand 
houses, and where two hundred thousand craftsmen worked 
for years at the erection of the dwelling of the chief. 1 Ty- 
lor, in a recent visit, made out the foundations of two large 
Teocallis and several tumuli, which marked ancient graves. 
In consequence of one of these geological phenomena which 
it is difficult to explain satisfactorily, but which are met with 
in every part of the globe, the lake which once washed the 
capital of the Tezcucans is now several miles from the mod- 
ern town. 

In spite of our wish to abridge a necessarily very dry list 
of names, it is impossible to omit noticing the ruins of 
Quemada, in the south of Zacatecas, on the road between 
the town of that name and Villanueva, not only on account 
of the mass of ruins which .cover a considerable area and 
bear witness to the ancient importance of the town, but also 
because of the differences between its buildings and any of 
those of which we have hitherto spoken. 

The origin of Quemada is unknown, but it has been stated, 
without any serious proof, that the Aztecs halted there in 
their migrations southward, and that it is to them that the 
town, the true name of which is unknown, owes its founda- 
tion. 2 

The Cerro de los Edificios is an irregular hill, half a mile 
long and from six hundred to nine hundred feet wide, which 
suddenly rises to the height of about sixteen hundred feet, 
near its summit. This was a fortress, a regular intrenched 
camp, surrounded with walls no less than twelve feet thick, 
with several tiers of bastions connected by curtains. A large 

1 Torquemada : " Mon. Ind.," vol. I., p, 304. The figures he gives are prob- 
ably greatly exaggerated. Peter Martyr only speaks of twenty thousand 
houses, and Cabajal Espinosa of thirty thousand, " Hist, de Mexico," Mexico, 
1862, vol. I., p. 87. 

2 Lyon : " Journal of a tour in the Republic of Mexico," London, 1828, vol. 
I., p. 225. Narcos de Esparza : " Informe presentado al Gobierno," Zacate- 
cas, 1830. J. Burkart : " Aufenthal und Reisen in Mexico," Stuttgart, 1S36. 
Nebel : " Viage sobre la Republica Mejicana," Paris, 1839. " Soc. Mex. Geog. 
Bob," 2a. epoca, vol. III., p. 278. Fegueux : " Les Ruines de la Quemada,'* 
Rev. d' Ethn., vol., I, p. 119. 



362 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



pyramid about thirty-two feet high, forms a veritable re- 
doubt. 

It is at Los Edificios, as the name implies, that the most 
important ruins are found. It is impossible to describe 
them, for they are now, as we have said, nothing but masses 
of rubbish ; and long and costly excavations alone could 
enable us to judge of the form and purpose of the various 
buildings. Several columns have remained standing, and 
the position of some of them indicate that they had formed 
part of porticos. This is an exceptional fact in ancient 
American architecture. These columns are in gray por- 
phyry, and remind us of the massive ones of Egyptian tem- 
ples. One of these columns is no less than nineteen feet in 
circumference, and eighteen feet high. Fegueux speaks of 
eleven columns of about three feet in diameter and nine 
in height. 

Besides the pyramid we have mentioned, there are several 
others belonging to this well-known type. The mortar 
which binds the stones together is, as in the buildings of the 
Mound Builders, a mixture of clay and straw. So far none 
of the sculptures, hieroglyphics, or pictographs, such as are 
so constantly met with in other ancient towns, have been 
found. Fegueux, however, speaks of a stone on which five 
serpents were engraved, situated at the foot of the escarp- 
ment of Los Edificios. 

The plain surrounding the Cerro is covered with ruins, 
amongst which neither pottery, flint weapons, nor imple- 
ments are found. We are met with the strange problem of 
a town, every thing about which proves its importance, yet 
where nothing of this sort reveals the presence of man. 

The province of Oajaca, situated on the banks of the 
Pacific and crossed by the Cordillera, includes a mountain- 
ous and sterile region overlooking the tierras calientes with 
their rich tropical vegetation; here dwelt the Zapotecs, 1 who 

1 Maler writes Tzapoteques {Nature, 25th Dec, 1880). Perhaps he is 
right, for the name seems to be derived from Tzapoll, " a well-known fruit," 
says Molina, " Vocabularis en lengua Castellana y Mexicana." They called 
themselves Didsasa. 



THE RUINS OF CENTRAL AMERICA. 



363 



resembled the Mayas in their language, 1 and the Nahuas in 
their religious rites and in the style of their architecture ; 
springing very probably from intermarriages between these 
two races. The men were strong and well built, brave and 
often ferocious 2 ; the expression of their faces was disagree- 
able ; whilst the women, on the contrary, are said to have 
been pretty, with finely cut and delicate features. 

Their religious rites, as we have just said, resembled those 
of the Aztecs. Among their numerous divinities, patrons of 
all the virtues and also of all the vices, they recognized one 
principal God, Piyexoo ; the uncreated being, Pitao-Cozaana, 
the Creator. What is more certain is that, like the Aztecs, 
they did honor to their gods by human sacrifices. Men 
were offered up on the altars of the gods, women on those 
of the goddesses. On the day dedicated to Teteionan, 3 a 
woman, who was seated on the shoulders of another woman, 
had her head cut off; and her bearer had to appear before 
the goddess bathed in the blood which flowed. At the cele- 
bration of a holiday in honor of the arrival of the gods, the 
victims were burned, and on other occasions children were 
drowned or walled up in caves, there to die slowly of the 
cruel tortures of hunger and fear. 4 

The Zapotecs were subject to a chief, and the office was 
hereditary. Contemporary with this chief lived a chief 
priest, the Weyetao, who resided at Yopaa, and took an im- 
portant part in the government of the country. His feet 
were never allowed to touch the ground ; he was carried on 
the shoulders of his attendants ; and when he appeared, all, 
even the chiefs themselves, had to prostrate themselves be- 
fore him, and none dared to raise their eyes in his presence. 

1 Bancroft (vol. III., p. 754) gives very fairly complete details on this lan- 
guage, and mentions his authorities. 

2 " Ferozes y valientes," says Burgoa, " Geog. Descr.," vol. I., p. 2, fol. 
196, vol. II., fol. 362. Herrera: " Hist. Gen.," vol. III., dec. III., book III., 
CXIV. 

8 A goddess adored by the various people of the Nahuatl race, also known 
under the names of Tozi, Toccy and Tocitzin. 

4 Clavigero, "St. Ant. del Messico," vol. II., p. 45 



364 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA, 



The Weyetao could not marry, and was bound to continence^ 
but on a certain day of the year he had a right to become 
intoxicated, and when he was in that state, a young and 
beautiful virgin was brought to him ; and it was the eldest 
of the children born of this union of a single day who in- 
herited the sacerdotal dignity. 1 

The splendor of the edifices erected by the Zapotecs was 
by no means inferior to that of the other people of Central 
America, and Mitla, 2 their capital and sacred town, was in 
every respect worthy of comparison with Palenque or Ux- 
mal, Chichen-Itza or Tenotchitlan. It is said to have been 
founded by the disciples of Quetzacoatl, and a legend tells 
that one day an old man of venerable aspect suddenly came 
out of Lake Huixa, accompanied by a young girl of incom- 
parable beauty. This old man was clothed in a dress and 
mantle of brilliant blue, and wore a mitre on his head. He 
pointed out an eminence, on which a temple was built un- 
der his orders ; he gave to the country wise and just laws, 
and disappeared as mysteriously as he had arrived. 3 But a 
town had already risen near the temple, and for centuries 
this town continued to prosper, thanks to the celestial pro- 
tection. There are vast gaps in its history, and a few very 
doubtful facts are just beginning to accumulate. We know 
that the Zapotecs were engaged in long struggles with the 
Aztecs, and that, at the end of the 15th century, about 
1494, Mitla was taken and given over to pillage, the priests 
who had conducted the defence being taken to Mexico, and 
offered up on the altars of Huitzilopochtli. 

The town of Mitla rises in the centre of a narrow and 
dusty valley, framed -in dreary and rugged mountains. Its 
ruins appear suddenly before the traveller, and their mag- 

1 Burgoa, loc. cit. Brasseur de Bourbourg : "Hist, des Nat. Civ.," vol. 
III., p. 29. 

2 The Zapotec name was Lioba or Yobba, the town of tombs ; the name of 
Mitla seems to have been given by the Aztecs. It may come from Mictlan, 
the abode of souls after death ; or from Mitl, one of the Nahua gods. 

- 3 Torquemada, vol. I., p. 255. Herrera, dec. III., book II., ch. XL 
Veytia, vol. I., p. 164. Burgoa, fol. 297, 343. 



THE RUINS OF CENTRAL AMERICA. 365 



nificence contrasts strangely with the arid and desert coun- 
try surrounding them. " The monuments of the golden age 
of Greece and of Rome," says the eminent archeologist, 
Viollet-le-Duc, " alone equal the beauty of the masonry of 
this great building. The facings, dressed with perfect regu- 
larity, the well-cut joints, the faultless bends, and the edges 
of unequalled sharpness, bear witness to knowledge and long 
experience on the part of the builders." 



B 




Fig. 144. — Plan of the great temple of Mitla. 



The most remarkable building of Mitla is the palace, 
lauded in such enthusiastic terms ; it consists of an interior 
quadrangle measuring 130 by 120 feet, surrounded on three 
sides 1 by rounded mounds, from which rise important 
buildings (fig. 144). The northern building (A) is well 
preserved ; of that on the east (C) nothing remains but a 
few crumbled walls, in the midst of which rise a portico and 

1 On the plan given by Dupaix he figures a fourth building. Viollet-le-Duc 
reproduces it (p. 75). The very foundations have now completely disappeared. 



3 66 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



two columns (c, c). The western building (D) has fared 
still worse ; its foundations alone remain. At Palenque the 
walls were entirely constructed of dressed stones; in Yuca- 
tan, dressings of large stones mask a heart of rubble-stone 
and mortar ; it is this latter mode which was employed at 
Mitla ; but the mortar is replaced by clay, and the exterior 
face is formed in masonry consisting of perfectly hewn 
stones, of the size of a small brick, producing many varied 
combinations by their joint patterns and zig-zags. 

The lateral buildings measure 96 feet by 17 ; that on the 
north 130 by 36. Several steps (G.) lead up to three doors 
(/i.) and give access to them. The lintels are no longer in 
wood, but in large stones, such as those in the monuments 
of Greece or Rome. 

The chief room (fig. 145) was ornamented by six columns, 
without plinth and without capital. These columns were 
probably intended to uphold the roof, and thus to lessen the 
bearing of the beams. 1 Humboldt, who visited these ruins 
in 1802, speaks of large beams; Dupaix says they were of 
the wood of a coniferous tree ; such was also the opinion of 
Viollet-le-Duc ; and Maler reports that at the time of his 
visit all the beams had disappeared. Burgoa, on the corw 
trary, speaks of having seen in their places large slabs more 
than two feet thick, resting on pillars nine feet high, and the 
Abbe Brasseur de Bourbourg 2 confirms this fact, adding that 
all round the building ran a cornice ornamented with gro- 
tesque sculptures, the whole of which formed a kind of 
diadem crowning the building. We have taken pains to re- 
late these unimportant details, to illustrate the impossibility 
of coming to any conclusions in the presence of facts so 
very obscure in themselves and rendered yet more confusing 
by the discrepancy of different explorers. 

The walls and the pavement had been covered with three 

1 Similar examples might be mentioned in certain pueblos, undoubtedly of 
more recent construction than the palace of Mitla, at Tuloom, on the eastern 
coast of Yucatan. 

3 " Hist, des Nat. Civ.," vol. III., p. 26. 




3^7 



3 68 



PKE-HIS TORI C A M ERICA . 



layers of very durable stucco, painted red, of a tone not un- 
like that decorating the walls of Pompeii. 

From the room of the columns a very dark lobby led into 
.a second court (I.), surrounded by rooms (&., b.), which, in spite 
of their small dimensions, must have been the chief ones of 
the palace. The richness of their ornamentation was remark- 
able ; the walls were covered with a regular mosaic in little 
stones, forming symmetrical designs, Greek frets, or ara- 
besques. It is difficult to decide whether these mosaics, of 
very skilful execution, bear witness to an art more advanced 
than that of the sculptures at Uxmal, it is yet more difficult 
to assign a date to the building of either. It is however, 
pretty generally agreed that the monuments of Uxmal are 
more ancient than those of Mitla. 

The three other palaces, the ruins of which are standing, 
must be briefly mentioned. They resemble, though on a 
smaller scale, the one already noticed. Probably hieratic in- 
fluence consecrated a type from which none were allowed to 
depart; everywhere we meet with the mosaics in stone, 
which are characteristic of the architecture of Mitla. We 
will only mention a subterranean gallery in the form of a 
cross, under one of these palaces. Crypts are in fact rare in 
Central America. 

The Zapotecs had carried their conquests as far as the 
isthmus of Tehuantepec, and it is probably to them that are 
due the pyramids still standing in several places, such as the 
fortifications of Cerro de Guiengola, 1 of which we have already 
had occasion to speak. These fortifications were erected 
after the taking of Mitla, by order of Cociyoeza ; they ena- 
bled the Zapotecs to make a victorious resistance, the result 
of which was an honorable peace for the vanquished. A 
sepulchre hewn in the very side of the Cerro has yielded 
more than two hundred pieces of pottery, chiefly vases or lit- 
tle figures of animals. The whole of the inside of the 
tomb was covered with a thick coating of cement, and the 

1 Arias: " Antiguedades Zapotecas," Museo Mex. Miiller : " Reisen in den 
-Vereinigten Staaten, Canada, und Mexico," Leipzig, 1864. 



THE RUINS OF CENTRAL AMERICA. 369 

corpses were placed with the faces turned toward the 
ground, a very unusual arrangement. * 

The Cerro de Guiengola is but a few leagues from Te~ 




Fig. 146. — Image of a Zapotec Fig. 147. — Zapotec ornament 

chief. found at Tehuantepec. 

huantepec, the capital of the province, where the recent 
discovery of the sepulchre of one of the ancient chiefs of 
the country is announced. 1 



1 ¥. Maler, Nature, 14th June, 1879. 



37o 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



In 1875, in demolishing a house, the workmen found a 
number of costly jewels of gold, together with several 
human skeletons which fell to dust immediately on contact 
with the air. This tomb was completely unknown at the 
time of the Spanish conquest, or it would certainly not have 
escaped the rapacity of the Spaniards. This last fact, taken 
with the state of the bones, justifies us in assigning great 
antiquity to the sepulchre, and adds to the value of the dis- 
covery. Unfortunately the jewels were sold for the weight 
of the gold, and nearly all were immediately melted down. 
The only ones left are those we reproduce (figs. 146 to 
149). One of them is supposed to be the image of a Zapo- 
tec chief, placed near his corpse ; the bird seems to have 
been a labret or pendant for the lip. A similar ornament is 
fastened to the royal lip. Several little figures represented 
turtles ; they are all made in a single piece, hollowed, with- 
out a trace of soldering, and such as the most skilful jewel- 
lers of our present day would find it very difficult to imitate. 

With the gold ornaments were also picked up several cop- 
per objects, earthenware vases of graceful form, a cup, the 
handle of which represents the paw of a feline animal, oth- 
ers ornamented with tastefully executed paintings, and 
lastly some necklaces of round stones and bracelets of sea- 
shells. At previous times several little earthenware figures 
had been found, which are now in the National Museum of 
Mexico. These discoveries, together with the monuments, 
or rather the ruins still existing, bear witness to the industry 
of the Zapotecs. 

We are obliged to omit numerous ruins, temples or pal- 
aces, mounds, pyramids or fortifications. Central America, 
from the Mississippi to the Isthmus of Panama, is literally 
covered with them, and that in the most different regions ; 
from fertile plains, where men can live in large numbers, to 
arid mountains, where it is scarcely possible to maintain ex- 
istence. It is impossible, however great their interest, to 
describe all these discoveries ; our sole aim is to illustrate 
the riches, the luxury, and the culture of these people, the 



THE RUINS OF CENTRAL AMERICA. 



371 



very name of which is almost effaced from the memory of 
men. 

Under these circumstances there is but one other fact to 
which it will be useful to call attention. Santa Lucia Co- 
sumhualpa, in the department of Escuintla (Guatemala), a 
little town of recent creation, not yet marked on any map, 
rises at the foot of the volcano del Fuego. The celebrated p 




Fig. 148. — Zapotec ornament Fig. 149. — Zapotec labret. 

found at Tehuantepec. 

German traveller, Bastian, who crossed the country in 1876, 
has proved the existence all around the village of important 
ruins, the greater number of which are, however, still hidden 
in the midst of impenetrable forests. 1 



1 Habel : "Investigations in Central and South America," "Smith. Cont.," 
vol. XXII. Schobel : " Un chap, de PArch. Am. Congres de Luxembourg,'" 
vol. II. 



372 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



Amongst blocks of cyclopean stone, and rubbish of all 
kinds, sculptures are seen, differing materially from and in- 
finitely superior to those we have described. 

In the sugar plantation of Don Manuel Herrera, Bastian 
saw colossal heads in stone, of a strange and unknown type, 
and several figures of animals, such as tapirs and alligators. 
These gigantic statues were arranged in threes, at equal dis- 
tances from each other, as if they had marked a colonnade 
now destroyed. At the Hacienda de los Taros lay three 
other figures in relief, five feet nine inches in height, by three 
feet seven inches across, and of bold execution. Two of 
these figures wore earrings, and their head-dresses resembled 
the Asiatic turban. 

Farther on are some bas-reliefs, sculptured in very hard 
porphyritic rocks, such as are only found near the volcano of 
Acatenango, so that the blocks must have been brought 
from a great distance. These huge bas-reliefs represent 
figures grotesque alike in design and execution, and mytho- 
logical scenes perfectly unlike those with which we are ac- 
quainted either in Maya or Nahuatl art. Several of these 
scenes represent the adoration of the sun and of the moon, 
or rather of the gods presiding over these heavenly bodies, 
for men had already adopted anthropomorphism and en- 
dowed their gods with the human form. The priests and 
worshippers are naked ; but the ornaments and jewels with 
which they are loaded are full of interest. Farther on a 
chief is seated on his throne, with the ear distended by a 
ring of considerable size and weight ; an interesting fact, for 
we meet again with this same barbarous custom imposed by 
the Incas upon the inhabitants of Peru, and the Mound 
Builders wore large copper rings in the ears. The most in- 
teresting bas-relief represents a human sacrifice (fig. 151); 
the principal personage is a priest, wearing the strange head- 
dress of a crab, holding in his right hand a flint, probably the 
sacrificial knife, and in his left hand the head of the victim 
whom he has just killed. Beneath are two figures, each car- 
rying a human head. One doubtless represents Death, for 



ME RUINS OF CENTRAL AMERICA. 



373 



his face is that of a skeleton ; he is girded with two serpents, 
and the form of his head is like that of an ape. The cut-off 
heads appear to have belonged to a different race from the 
priest or his assistant. 

The bodies are nude and of correct proportions ; orna- 
ments are arranged so as to hide the sexual organs ; the feet 
are shod with sandals, and the features express satisfaction. 
Lastly, it is the head of the victim, not the heart as was the 
invariable custom of the Aztecs, which was being presented 
to the gods. 

The sculptures found at Santa Lucia are by no means 




FlG. 150. — Stone head found near Santa Lucia. 

exceptional. The whole of Guatemala, that ancient land of 
the Quiches and Cakchiquels, is covered with ruins, among 
which are bas-reliefs, statues and monoliths, some attaining 
twenty-five feet in height, and including numerous repre- 
sentations of men and animals. At Quirigua especially, on 
the Rio Motagua, about eight miles from Ysabal, a little 
port on the Gulf of Honduras, have been discovered a colos- 
sal head, and a statue of a woman with feet and hands mis- 
sing, wearing on her head a crowned idol ; while, close by, 
excavations have yielded the head cf a tiger in porphy- 




I 



Fig. 151.— Human Sacrifice ; bas-relief from Sta. Lucia. 
374 



THE RUINS OF CENTRAL AMERICA. 



375 



ritic rock ; the terror that this great feline animal inspired 
doubtless led to its being admitted to the rank of a god. 1 
An altar, on one of the sides of which a turtle has been 
sculptured, and lastly an idol, twenty-three feet high, also 
deserve to be mentioned. All these figures are menacing 
or repulsive ; human bodies are surmounted by the heads of 
apes. Unlike the immortal creators of art in Greece, the 
early Americans did not seek beauty, or rather they did not 
understand it, and their conceptions could not therefore be 
of equal elevation. 

What justly surprises us is the immense amount of work 
required in these sculptures, with such mechanical processes 
as alone appear to have been known. First of all, blocks of 
hard stone had to be got out with wretched implements of 
quartz or obsidian ; and then the granite or porphyry had to 
be sawn into slabs with agave-fibre and emery. 2 A rough 
drawing of the outline indicated where the thickness was to 
be reduced, and this work was executed either by sawing a 
certain portion, which was immediately skilfully chipped, 
or by hammering with a flint point ; lastly, with the help of 
flat stones or polishers and of water mixed with emery, the 
surface of the plane portions was rubbed so as to remove all 
traces of the work. These processes were long, and neces- 
sarily required great patience on the part of the workmen 
to obtain the desired results. This is a certain indication of 
a society in its infancy, where men had not yet learned to 
recognize the value of time. 

We have spoken of the engravings on rock and hiero- 
glyphics met with in the region occupied by the Cliff Dwellers 
and the inhabitants of the pueblos. We meet with similar 
engravings and similar hieroglyphics throughout Central 
America. The desire of perpetuating the memory of the 
objects before his eyes by imitating them is one of the 

1 Stephens : " Central America," vol. II., p. 188. Scherzer : " Ein Besuch 
bei den Ruinen von Quirigua im Staate Guatemala," Vienna, 1S65. 

2 Soldi : " Les camees et les pierres gravees Tart au moyen age, l'art Khmer, 
le's arts du Perou et du Mexique, l'art Egyptien, les arts industriels, des musees 
du Trocadero," Paris, 1880. 



376 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



most characteristic peculiarities of man. In Honduras is a 
rock covered, as to a great part of its surface, by figures of 
men, animals, and plants, engraved in taglio to a depth 
of more than two inches, and Pinart describes in the State 
of Panama cliffs entirely covered with hieroglyphics, w T hich 
he tells us are full of interest for the student. 

In Mexico there are paintings, which are regular annals of 
the people, and represent their first migrations. Bancroft 
(vol. II., pp. 544, 545, 547) reproduces these paintings after 
Gemelli, Carer, and Lord Kingsborough. They are very 
curious. 

The museum of Mexico possesses a whole series of 
paintings, showing the education of children, the food 
which was given to them, the tasks which were set them, 
and the punishments which were inflicted upon them. Ban- 
croft (vol. II., p. 589) gives these figures after the Codex 
Mendoza. 

These pictures have the distinct outlines and brilliant 
colors at which the Aztecs aimed above every thing, as we 
have already seen, in speaking of their sculptures ; they did 
not aspire to an exact imitation of nature, still less to a beau- 
tiful ideal, which they were incapable of understanding. 
" We see in the Mexican paintings," says Humboldt, " heads 
of an enormous size, a body extremely short, and feet which, 
from the length of the toes, look like the claws of a bird. 
All this denotes the infancy of the art ; but we must not 
forget that people who express their ideas by paintings, and 
who are compelled by their state of society to make frequent 
use of mixed hieroglyphical writing, attach as little impor- 
tance to correct painting, as the literati of Europe to a fine 
handwriting in their manuscripts." Without agreeing with 
Humboldt's comparison, it is certain that we must not seek 
amongst the Aztecs for models of decorative painting such 
as those recently discovered in the Palatinate ; the ignorance 
of the artists shows that their work was a spontaneous pro- 
duct of their genius, and that they had not been subjected to 
any foreign influence on the soil of America. According to 



THE RUINS OF CENTRAL AMERICA. 



377 



tradition they borrowed their processes from the Toltecs, 
* the initiators of all progress in Mexico and Central America. 
After their final victory it is said that the rulers of Mexico 
had the paintings destroyed which recalled the grandeur of 
those they had conquered. By a just retribution, but un- 
fortunately for science, the Spaniards in their turn destroyed 
the Aztec annals, and a few incomplete copies, a few frag- 
ments that escaped this barbarous destruction, are the only 
original sources of information from which it is now possible 
to draw. 

It is easy to understand the first idea of the hieroglyphics. 
First of all engravings on rocks give the animate or inani- 
mate object which struck the eye of the artist. In all 
ages this is the primitive form of the art. Then arose a 
desire to represent not only men or objects, but also cer- 
tain scenes, such as a battle, a migration, or a fire, the 
memory of which they wished to preserve. Later, by way 
of abbreviation, the artist was content to express names or 
things by conventional signs. An arrow, for example, signi- 
fied an enemy ; several arrows, several enemies ; the direc- 
tion of the point, the direction these enemies had taken. 
Often the names themselves had a signification lending itself 
to representation by a figure, thus : Chapultepec, the hill of 
the grasshopper ; Tzompanco, the place of skulls ; CJiimal- 
popoca, the shield full of smoke ; Acamapitzin, the hand full 
of reeds ; Macuilxochitl, the five flowers ; Quauhtenchan, the 
dwelling of the eagle. In other cases names are translated 
by regular puns. To give one instance, Itzcoatl, ruler of 
Mexico, was represented by a serpent, coatl, pierced by 
several splinters of obsidian, itzli. Hence by a rapid transla- 
tion was given, not the true form of the objects, but the 
representation of the name they bore in the spoken lan- 
guage ; then by a very simple link, signs were replaced by 
letters, and an alphabet was complete. 

Hieroglyphics, true conventional signs, mark then a period 
of human evolution. They are met with on the monuments 
of Chiapas as on those of Yucatan ; on the walls of Palenque 



378 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



or Copan, as on those of Chichen-Itza or Quirigua (figs. 113, 
124, 126, 127, 128, 130); they were sculptured or engraved 
on granite or on porphyry, with quartzite and obsidian im- 
plements. 1 Iron, we repeat, was absolutely unknown ; no- 
where do we find it mentioned, and nowhere do we meet 
with the characteristic rust which is the undeniable proof of 
its presence. 

Hitherto it has. been impossible to discover a key by which 
to decipher the hieroglyphics. Las Casas tells us that in his 
time there were still men learned in the reading and the re- 
production of these signs, 2 whose business ^t was to register 
events, noting the day, the month, and the year in which 
they happened ; and he adds that these men so thoroughly 
understood what they had written, and what the ancients 
had written before them, that our letters would have been 
useless to them. In earlier times these hieroglyphics were 
executed by the priests of the god Centeotl, which priests 
had to be old men, widowers, and vowed to continence and 
a contemplative life. It was then a hieratic writing, known 
to the initiated only, which is reproduced in the Maya manu- 
scripts of which we have spoken, especially in the Codex 
Perezianus and that of Dresden. Bancroft (vol. II., p. 771) 
enters into minute details in regard to these various manu- 
scripts. He reproduces fragments of two of them ; it is easy, 
by means of comparison, to make sure of their similarity to 
the hieroglyphics of which we are speaking. Bishop Diego 
de Landa speaks of a graphic system 3 ; he has even pre- 
served an alphabet of thirty-three signs, one of which is in- 
tended to mark the aspirate ; but unfortunately the alphabet 
has only come down to us in a very imperfect form ; and in 

1 Gomara : " Conq. Mex.," p. 318. Clavigero : " Stor. Ant. del Messico," 
vol. II., p. 205. 

2 " Hist. Apologetica de las Yndias Occidentals. " 

3 " Relacion de las cosas de Yucatan," published in 1864 by Brasseur de Bour- 
bourg, with a French translation. It is fair to add that the aim of the bishop 
was to prepare for the natives religious books with signs which were familiar to 
them. He did not occupy himself with art, history, or archaeology. Some well- 
founded doubts, we must add, exist as to the value of his alphabet. 



THE RUINS OF CENTRAL AMERICA. 



379 



spite of estimable earnest works 1 on the subject, it has been 
impossible to decipher, with its help, either the manuscripts, 
or the hieroglyphics, which according to all appearance are 
more ancient than they. 

The letters given by Landa, however, sensibly resemble 
those of the manuscripts 2 ; they may, therefore, be a con- 
necting link between the hieroglyphics and the graphic 
writing. The words, arranged in the same order as ours, 
appear most probably to be constructed on the polysyn- 
thetic system, and present that character so characteristic of 
the languages of the New World. They were written on 
real paper, made either of the root of certain plants, such as 
the agave, on prepared skins, or even on cotton cloth. 
Several leaves were enclosed between richly ornamented 
wooden boards. These are called analtees, and this word 
cannot be better rendered than by annals? 

The Troano manuscript is written on a strip of paper 
fourteen feet long by about nine inches wide. The charac- 
ters, which are red, brown, sometimes blue, according to 
the text to which they relate, are written on both sides. 
The paper opens out as does a fan, and each leaf thus repre- 
sents thirty-five pages. The chief manuscripts which have 
come down to us, and which must not be confounded with 
those already mentioned, are the Codex Mendoza, sent to 
Charles V., by the viceroy Mendoza, now in the Bodleian 
Library at Oxford, and of which a copy is in the Escurial ; 

1 We will mention L. de Rosny : ' ' Essai de dechiffrement de 1'ecriture 
hie'ratique de l'Amerique Centrale," Paris, 1875. De Charency, " Recherches 
sur le Codex Troano," Paris, 1876. " Essai de de'chiffrement d'une inscription 
palenqueenne " ; Actes de le Soc. de Philologie, vol. I., March, 1878. Unfor- 
tunately when this last work appeared, we had only very imperfect reproduc- 
tions of the hieroglyphics of Palenque. Charnay has lately sent to Paris plaster 
casts of them, and every one can now consult them in the Trocadero Museum. 
See also Bollaert's paper published in the "Memoirs of the Anthropological 
Society of London," vol. II., p. 298. We do not speak of the works of the 
Abbe Brasseur de Bourbourg, which are characterized rather by imagination 
than by science. 

2 Ch. Rau, p. 57, "Smith. Cont.," vol. XXII. 

3 Peter Martyr, decade iv., book viii. Juan de Villagutierre y Sotomayor, 
" Hist, de la Conquista de la Province de el Itza," Madrid, 1701. 



3 8o 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



the Codex Telleriano-Remensis in the National Library of 
France; the Codex Vaticanus copied at Mexico in 1566, in 
the Vatican Library at Rome ; the Codex Borgia, in the col- 
lege of the Propaganda at Rome ; the Codex Bologna, sup- 
posed to be a treatise on astrology; and lastly a codex, the 
origin of which is unknown, but which we know to have 
been given to the Emperor Leopold in 1677 by a duke of 
Saxe Eisenach. Lord Kingsborough also gives representa- 
tions of fragments of several other manuscripts, and it is to 
his magnificent work that those who wish to make a special 
study of the subject should refer. 

To sum up, the Mexican manuscripts which have escaped 
so many causes of destruction include three very distinct 
kinds of painting : figurative painting, in which the artist 
reproduces more or less exactly the objects before his eyes; 
symbolical painting, in which the object is represented by a 
conventional sign ; and, lastly, phonetic painting, in which 
it is no longer the object, but the name it bears, that the 
artist endeavors to give. These three styles still existed in 
Mexico on the arrival of the Spanish, for we know that 
when Juan de Grijalva appeared on the coast of Vera Cruz, 
the Cuetlachtlan chiefs hastened to send to Montezuma 
very exact paintings of the vessels, weapons, and clothes of 
these strangers, who already so justly excited the alarm of 
the Mexicans. 1 • 

The luxury of the private life of the wealthy inhabitants 
of these sumptuous towns was on a par with that of the 
public buildings. The chairs on which they sat in the 
Oriental style were of wood, often imitating the form of an 
animal, such as a tiger or an eagle, for instance. These 
chairs were covered with the tanned skins of deer, and orna- 
mented with embroideries in gold and silver. Skins of the 
same kind were used to decorate the walls of the principal 
rooms, or they were painted in gaudy colors, red and blue 

1 Torquemada : " Mon. Ind." p. 378; Acosta : " Hist, de las Ynd.," p 515 ; 
Veytia : " Hist ant. de Mejico," vol. III., p. 377 ; Herrera : " Hist. Gen.," dec. 
II., book III., ch. IX. 



THE RUINS OF CENTRAL AMERICA. 



381 



being most generally preferred. 1 They had at home vases 
of agate or precious stone, ornaments, statuettes of gold or 
silver cast in one piece, eight-sided dishes, each side of a 
different metal, fish of which the scales were made of gold 
and silver mixed, and parrots that moved their head and 
wings. It has even been alleged that they were acquainted 
with the art of enamelling, and that they knew how to 




Fig. 152. — Earthenware vase found at Ticul. 



temper copper so as to render it hard enough to make 
hatchets and very sharp knives. The Peruvians are also said 
to have possessed such a secret, but no weapons or orna- 
ments have been discovered in either country to justify this 
assertion. 

Cortes mentioned to Charles V. his surprise at the num- 
ber of gold, silver, lead, copper, and tin 2 ornaments publicly 
exposed for sale. In some places little bits of tin were used 
as money ; elsewhere pieces of copper, very much like the 

1 Ordonez : "Palenque," quoted by Brasseur de Bourbourg : " Hist, des Nat. 
Civilisees, vol. II., p. 69. 

2 Tin {tachco) is chiefly found near the town of Tazco, from which it takes 
its name. '" Carta secunda de Relacion," 30th Oct., 1520. 



^82 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



tau (t) in form; or quills filled with gold-dust served the 
same purpose. Trading was, however, chiefly carried on by 
barter, and payments, according to Bollaert, were made in 
balls of cotton or cacao-nibs. The copper objects often con- 
tained a certain amount of silver; but as silver is found in 
copper in its natural state, we must not, therefore, conclude 
that the Mexicans were acquainted with alloys of metals. 
The tissues used were no less rich ; the goddess Ixalzavoh, 
it is said, had herself taught the people of Yucatan the art 
of spinning and weaving ; and the numerous and varied 
dye-woods of these districts furnished ample means of color- 
ing cloth. 

The pottery was remarkable, alike in style and execution. 
Herrera speaks of a province of Guatemala, where it was 
the especial duty of the women to make it, and Palacio 
adds, that this manufacture was the chief industry of Agua- 
chipa, one of the towns of the Pipiles, of the Maya race, 
who inhabited the territory now forming the republic of San 
Salvador. We give a reproduction of a vase found at Ticul, 
near Uxmal, (fig. 152), the monkey face forming the centre 
of the decoration, is remarkably characteristic of designs of 
Palenque. We also give a little terra-cotta figure (fig. 153), 
found in Chiapas, near Ococingo ; whether it be an idol or a 
grotesque, it has about it a certain artistic merit. 

The Nahuas were inferior in nothing to the Mayas. They 
not only fashioned vases of the most varied form for domes- 
tic use, 1 but also images of the gods they worshipped, statu- 
ettes of animals or serpents, censers in which they burnt 
copal on holy days ; bowls, beads for personal ornament, 
and trumpets or flutes, with which they imitated the cry of 
different animals. 

1 The different museums of Europe, such as the Christy collection in Lon- 
don, the Unde collection at Heidelberg, and others, contain numerous speci- 
mens of the art of American potters. Above all, we must mention the Na- 
tional Museum of Mexico ; the Smithsonian Institution and the National Mu- 
seum at Washington. The catalogue of the first of them was published in 
Vol. III. of the "Philosophical Transactions'," and that of the second by 
Charles Rau : "Smith. Contr.," vol. XXII. 



THE RUINS OF CENTRAL AMERICA. 



383 



These musical instruments of terra cotta were of very 
fine workmanship ; they were four or five inches long, and 
pierced with several holes, which gave forth from two to six 
different notes. In nearly all of them the mouth is modelled 
so as to represent an animate object, such as a flower, an 
animal or a man (fig. 154). The human faces, like those of 




Fig. 153. — Terra-cotta statuette FlG. 154. — Earthenware flute. ■ 

found at Ococingo. 



the idols (fig. 155), are always grotesque and hideous, afford- 
ing another proof that these people had no idea of beauty, 
or rather of beauty such as we conceive it. When the Mexi- 
cans departed from the human form, the decoration of their 
vases is perhaps too profuse, but not at all inartistic (figs. 156, 
157, 158). We mention especially a vase more than twenty- 



384 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



two inches high by fifteen in diameter, found in an excava- 
tion under one of the public squares of Mexico, not only 




FlG. 155. — Idol from Zachila. Fig. 156 — Vase from the National 

Museum of Mexico. 




-Fig. 157. — Vase belonging to the National Museum at Washington. 



THE RUINS OF CENTRAL AMERICA. 



385 



on account of its form and decoration, but because it was 
filled with human skulls, curiously piled one on top of the 
other. 

Some Mexican pottery is probably of great antiquity, and 
it may even be of earlier date than the arrival of the Toltecs 
in Anahuac. Indeed, recently have been discovered, in a 
cave of the province of Durango, thousands of dried mum- 
mies ; and with these mummies hatchets, arrow-points of 
flint, and vases remarkable in form and decoration. 1 

The Aztecs were no less skilful in working obsidian than 
in moulding clay. They made of obsidian, in spite of the 




Fig. 158. — Mexican vase in the National Museum at Washington. 

difficulties of cutting and polishing it, knives, razors, lance- 
or arrow-heads, mirrors, and sometimes masks, which they 
placed on the faces of the dead at the time of the funeral. 
This last custom was general, for the chiefs at least, for 
similar masks have been found in several places, not only in 
obsidian, but also in marble or serpentine. 2 Lastly, the 

1 " Proc. Anthr. Soc. of Washington," 1S79, p. So. 

2 Math, de Fossey : " Le Mexique," Paris, 1857, p. 213. It is also a charac- 
teristic of the Aleuts and Western Eskimo of the northwest coast of America, 
and has been treated of at length in the " Report of the Bureau of Ethnology at 
Washington for 1883." 



336 



PRE-HIS TORIC A ME RICA . 



National Museum of Mexico contains numerous and inter- 
esting agate, coral, and shell ornaments. The Christy col- 
lection of London is no less rich, and from it we illustrate a 
chalcedony knife. The handle is a mosaic made of tur- 
quoises, malachite, and white or red shells. It is surpri 
to find a people still in the stone age executing such delicate 
work with the wretched implements we know o 

To sum up, every thing goes to prove that the ancient 
races of Central America possessed an advanced culture, 
exact ideas on certain arts and sciences, and remarkable 




Fig. 159. — Knife with chalcedony blade, in the Christy collection. 

technical knowledge. As pointed out in 1869 by Morgan, 
in the North American Review, the Spanish succeeded in 
destroying in a few years a civilization undoubtedly superior 
in many respects to that which they endeavored to substi- 
tute for it. We are not at all surprised at this severe judg- 
ment, which we should endorse if we did not think that the 
suppression of the human sacrifices, of which we have de- 
scribed the gloomy horrors, ought to be taken into account 
before pronouncing a final judgment on the peoples of the 
New World and on their cruel and bigoted conquerors. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



PERU. 

The chain of the Andes traverses the whole of South 
America, and near the boundary between Bolivia and Chili 
it divides into two branches, the principal still called the 
Cordillera of the Andes, and the other and nearer to the 
Pacific the Cordillera de la Costa parallel with the Pacific, 
which enclose between them, at a height of above 3,000 feet, 
the Desaguadero, a vast table-land, the area of which is 
equal to that of France. At one of the extremities of this 
table-land is Potosi, the most elevated town of the globe, 
13,330 feet above the sea level; and on the north is Cuzco, 
the ancient capital of the Incas ; whilst between them lies 
Lake Titicaca, the greatest body of fresh water in South 
America. 

The whole country is dreary and desolate ; no luxuriant 
vegetation breaks the gloom of the landscape ; cereals can- 
not ripen, and animals are rare. Between the Cordillera de 
la Costa and the ocean are arid rocks, sands on which noth- 
ing can grow, resembling the great deserts of Africa, 1 with a 
few valleys, formed by the tributaries of the Amazon, and 
swallowed up in these vast solitudes, the sole possessors of 
the wealth of tropical nature. 

Nowhere in the world, perhaps, has man displayed greater 
energy. It was in these desolate regions that arose the most 
powerful and most highly civilized empire of the two 
Americas, and at the present day its memory is everywhere 
preserved in the imposing ruins covering the country, the 

1 "Sahara is a thing of beauty, and Arizona a joy forever, compared with 
the coast of Peru." Squier, "Peru," p. 25. 

387 



388 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



fortress defending it, the roads intersecting it, the acequias 
or canals conducting the water needed for fertilizing the 
fields, the tambos or houses of refuge in the mountains for 
the use of travellers, 1 the potteries, the linen and cotton 
cloth, and the ornaments of gold and silver concealed in the 
graves, and which are sought for by the Tapadas with insati- 
able zeal. 2 

The empire of the Incas, of which we are now to speak, 
was three thousand miles in length by four hundred in 
width, between S. Lat. 4 0 and 34 0 — i. e., from the river 
Andasmayo of the north of Quito to the river Maule in 
Chili. It included within its limits Peru, 3 Bolivia, Ecua- 
dor, part of Chili, and the Argentine Republic. It was as 
much as one million square miles in area, and when, under 
the Inca Huayna-Capac, it had reached the culminating 

1 The Qquicliua name was tampa, and tambo is a Spanish corruption. 

2 Montesinos : " Meniorias antiguas historiales del Peru." Ternaux Compans 
published a French translation in 1840 ; its facts are mingled with many 
fables. Garcilasso de la Vega : " Los Comentarios reales que tratan del origen 
de los Incas, reyes que fueron del Peru," 2 vols , fob, Lisbon, 1609-1616 ; 
"Hist des Incas, rois du Perou," French translation, Paris, 1744. It is the 
most complete account which we have of the history of the Incas, but Garcilasso, 
from his retirement in Spain, wrote forty years after the events of which he was 
witness, and with an evident partiality for the Incas, from whom he was 
descended by the mother's side. " Tres relacions de Antiguedades Peruanas 
publicalas el Ministerio de Fomento," Madrid, 1879. This volume contains 
"Relacion por el Licenciado Fernando de Santillon" ; " Rel. Anonima " ; 
' ' Rel. por D. Joan de Santa Cruz Pachacuti. " Humboldt : ' ' Vues des Cordilleres 
■et Mon. des Peuples indigenes de 1' Amerique," Paris, 1810. D'Orbigny : 
" L'Homme Americain," Paris, 1834-1S47 (Extract from " Voy. dans lAmer. 
Meridionale," 9 vols., 4°). E. de Rivero et Tschudi : " Antiguedades Peruanas," 
Vienna, 1851, and " Die Kechua Sprache," Vienna, 185-3. W. H. Prescott : 
"Hist, of the Conquest of Peru," 7th edition, London, 1854. Hutchinson: 
" Two Years in Peru." E. Desjardins : " Le Perou avant la Conquete Espag- 
nole," Paris, 1858. W. Bollaert: "Antiquarian, Ethnological, and other 
Resarches in New Granada, Ecuador, Peru, and Chili," London, 1S60. Mateo 
Paz Soldan : " Geog. del Peru," Paris, 1862. V. F. Lopez: " Les Races 
Aryennes du Perou," Paris and Montevideo, 1S71. Squier : " Peru, Incidents 
of Travel and Exploration in the Land of the Incas," 2d edition, London, 1S78. 
C. Wiener : " Perou et Bolivie," Paris, Hachette, 1880. 

"The name of Peru is a Spanish invention. The inhabitants called it Tavan- 
.tisuyu, literally " the four parts of the world." 



PERU. 



389 



point of its grandeur, its population may possibly have num- 
bered from ten to eleven million souls. 1 

The origin of the Incas is unknown, and there is nothing 
known of the real history of the country covering more than 
four hundred years before the Spanish conquest. Accord- 
ing to tradition Manco-Capac and the beautiful Mama-CEllo, 
his sister and his wife, made known the first elements of 
civilization to tribes which had previously been savage and 
barbarous. In obedience to them these men broke their 
idols to adore a spirit, Creator and Preserver of the world, of 
whom the sun and the moon were the visible form. Mon- 
tesinos gives the history of one hundred and one rulers 
who, after Manco-Capac, wore the head-dress (llautii) denot- 
ing their sovereignty, and he dates their origin from the fifth 
century before the deluge. 

In this account a little truth is mixed with much fable. It 
is certain that before the time of Manco-Capac the in- 
habitants of the country were by no means plunged in 
barbarism. The Oquichua culture had a past, of which the 
theocratic and social organization founded by the first Inca 
was but a development. Numerous buildings^ are un- 
doubtedly earlier than the Incas, at least than those of 
whom authentic history has preserved an account. They 
are distinguished by their more massive character, their 
bolder and more artistic construction, and by certain general 
features presenting some resemblances to sundry Asiatic 
monuments. 2 ^As for the narrative of Montesinos it doubt- 
less refers in part to the history of different people or tribes, 
the union of which later formed the dominion of the Incas. 
These people certainly had common bonds of union. A 
curious analogy is presented by the monuments which may 
be attributed to them, the sepulchral tumuli, fortresses, and 
temples preserve similarities of style from Arica to San 

l A census ordered by Philip II. indicated no more than eight million two 
hundred and eighty thousand, and at the present day the population of these 
countries does not amount to half this number. 

2 Angrand : "Lettre sur les Antiquites de Tiaguanaco," Paris, 1S66. Allen : 
" La ties Ancienne Amerique," Nancy, 1874. 



390 



PREHISTORIC AMERICA, 



Jose ; everywhere the ornaments, pottery, and mode of 
burial are identical ; every thing indicates a common 
origin. 

At the time of the Spanish conquest those aboriginal 
were represented by the Aymaras, who inhabited the 1 
land of the Andes, and the Qquichuas, established around 
Cuzco. 1 D'Orbigny is of opinion that the differenceo be- 
tween them were rather apparent than real. There are 
decided analogies in the grammatical structure of their 
language ; a great number of the words are the same, and 
the differences we notice are such as are usually met with in 
dialects eminating from a single source. 2 Side by side with 
these undeniable relations, however, there are dissimilarities 
so marked that they must be attributed to different biologi- 
cal conditions, and we conclude that, if there be a kinship 
between these races, their common origin must be carried 
back to a remote period. 

To sum up : In the present state of knowledge, it is 
difficult to determine the connection between the Aymaras 
and the Qquichuas, and we cannot do better than compare 
it with that which we have pointed out between the Mayas 
and 'the Quiches, or better still between the Toltecs and 
the Aztecs. Whilst admitting the possibility of this hy- 
pothesis, there is yet another, even more plausible, which 
Humboldt was the first to advance, and which Angrand up- 
holds with weighty reasons. The Qquichuas may have come 
from the north, probably several centuries after the Aymaras, 
and we must look for their ancestors among the prolific races 
of Central America. 3 

1 Markham : "The Tribes of the Empire of the Incas," Royal Geog. Soc., 
1871. D'Orbigny: " L'Homme Ame'ricain," vol. II., p. 306. Forbes :" The 
Aymara Indians," Journ. of the Ethn. Soc, London, 1870. Ch. Wiener: 
"Perou et Bolivia," Paris, 1880. 

2 Don V. F. Lopez supposed Qquichua to be an Aryan language ; but in that 
case would it have remained agglutinative with words such as Mananccallaby- 
cuciillahuancupasraocchu {they have not had the kindness or the charity to think 
of ??ie). See also Tschudi : " Die Kechua Sprache," Cong, des Ame'rican- 
istes, Luxembourg, 1877, vol. II., p. 75. 

s Angrand, /. c, p. 37<?/ sea. 



PERU. 



391 



Setting aside conjectures more or less justified, the native 
account generally accepted shows us Manco-Capac reigning 
from 102 1 to 1062, while by another version he only reigned 
thirty-six years and died in 1054. Fourteen Incas succeeded 
him, several of whom were remarkable men, under whom 
the government became consolidated and increased in terri- 
tory. 1 The last was Atahualpa, whose short reign was 
marked by a fierce struggle with his brother Huascar, and 
by the cruel massacres which terminated it. 

A more dangerous enemy was about to appear ; Pizarro 
disembarked in the Bay of San Mateo in 1534, 2 having with 
him three vessels, 174 men and twenty-seven horses. A 
little later he received a reinforcement of 130 men. It was 
before these feeble forces that the empire of the Incas was 
to succumb. Atahualpa was beaten and made prisoner at 
Caxalmalca. A little later, implicated in a probably imagi- 
nary conspiracy, he was condemned to perish by fire. In 
vain he offered, to save his life, to fill one of the rooms of his 
palace, as high as a Spaniard on foot could reach with his 
hand, with ornaments, vases, and gold and silver jewels. 
This room, according to Xeres the secretary of Pizarro, was 
twenty-two feet long by seventeen wide The conquista- 
dores accepted his riches, but the only favor the unfortunate 
Inca could obtain, and that on condition that he would re- 
ceive baptism, was that of being strangled instead of being 
burnt. The notary Sanchez has preserved for us the act, 
dated the 17th of June, 1533, sanctioning the division of the 
ransom of the Inca. Pizarro received for his share 2350 
marks of silver and 57,220 pieces of gold; his brother 
Hernandez, 1,267 marks of silver and 31,080 pieces of gold. 
The church deducted to begin with, as tithe, 90 marks 
of silver and 2,220 pieces of gold. 

It is not our intention to relate here, either the history 3 

1 " No ha habido en la tierra monarcas mas despoticos que los Incas, Eran 
adorados como seras sobrinaturales." Paz-Soldan, " Geog. del Peru." 

" x A first exploration of the coast of Peru by Pizarro took place in 1524, under 
the reign of Huayna-Capac. F. Xeres : " Rel. dela Conq. du Perou " ; Ternaux- 
Compans, translation. 

3 " Itineraries of Francisco and Hernandez Pizarro," published for the 



39 2 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



of the Incas or that of the Spanish domination. What we 
want to do is to make known the strange people who, in 
spite of the obstacles due to an inhospitable region, suc- 
ceeded in occupying the first place among the natio 
South America; and this we shall do by describing the 
ruins, and products of art and industry, left behind by t 
and by studying their manners, laws, and religious ideas. 
We shall tell what were Pachacamac, Chimu, Tiaguanaco, 
Titicaca, Cuzco, and other towns, with the important monu- 
ments of every kind, of which the ruins bear witness. Un- 
fortunately man is daily busy in effecting their destruction ; 
intoxicated by the innumerable legends on the hidden riches 
of the Incas, the treasure-seekers or tapadas dig zealously 
everywhere ; the walls are crumbling beneath the pick-axe ; 
the sculptures are breaking ; the subterranean passages are 
falling in ; all the mementos of a great past are disappearing, 
and men are overturning in an instant what has been re- 
spected for centuries. 

Pachacamac 1 is situated on the Pacific, twenty miles from 
Lima. A few miserable reed huts have replaced the sacred 
town of the ancient Peruvians, with a few ruins, difficult even 
to describe, of monuments that at the time of the arrival of 
the first Inca, were already old. A silence, scarcely broken 
by the flight of a few condors, reigns in districts where pil- 
grimages once attracted an immense concourse of the faith- 
ful, and a single burial-place (figs. 160,. 161) of considerable 
extent, remains the sole witness of bygone grandeur. 

According to Estete, one of the companions of Hernandez 
Pizarro, who was sent by his brother to reduce Pachacamac 
to submission, the town was large, and near the temple rose 
a house surrounded by a series of five walls which was called 
" The house of the Sun." There were also, he tells us, 
many other large houses, with terraces similar to those met 
with in Spain. It must have been a very ancient town, 

Hakluyt Society by C. R. Markham, London, 1872. Consult Desjardins' ex- 
cellent work, " Le Perou avant la Conquete Espagnole." 

1 From pacha, the earth, and ca?nac, participle of camani to create. Desjar- 
dins (note I, p. 23,) however gives another etymology. 



PERU. 



393 



judging from the numerous buildings in ruins. At the time 
of this writer the whole town was surrounded by a wall, 
already in ruins in several places, and with large doors open- 
ing out of it. 

El Castillo, to which Estete's description doubtless refers, 
rose from a rock 500 feet above the sea-level. The walls of 

rock were faced with adobes painted red, forming four 

terraces, 1 one behind the other. This is an arrangement 
resembling that noticed in Central America, 2 and bears 




Fig. 160. — Peruvian mummy. Fig. 161. — Peruvian mummy. 

witness to the relation which certainly existed between the 
inhabitants of the two areas. The platform covers several 
acres of ground, and on it the ruins of what were once im- 
portant buildings can still be discerned. The temple faced 
the south. Estete goes on to tell us that it was a fine 
house, well painted and decorated, and that in a very dark 
and offensively-smelling recess, always kept closed, was a 
wooden idol, which represented for these people the image 

1 Such is Squier's account. Wilkes (" U. S. Exploring Expedition ") and 
Markham (" Cuzco and Lima ") speak of only three terraces. 

2 The pyramidal mound of Cholula may especially be compared with it. 
Hutchinson : " Two Years in Peru," vol. I., p. 159-303. Markham : " Cuzco. 
and Lima." 



394 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



of the Creator. At its feet were numerous gold and silver 
ornaments, the offerings of the worshippers of the god. 
None but the priest were allowed to enter this recess. 

After a visit to the sanctuary, which quite stupefied the 
natives with astonishment, Hernandez destroyed the image 
of Pachacamac, after whom the town was called. He was 
still more eager to take possession of the treasure, and con- 
temporary chroniclers relate that the Spanish obtained 
twenty-seven cargas 1 of gold and 16,000 ounces of silver; 
unfortunately, they add, they were not able to discover the 
principal treasure which may have amounted to 400 cargas 
of gold. 




Fig. 162. — Niche in a wall at Pachacamac. 



A mile and a half from El Castillo, near a little lake, the 
ruins of a nuns' convent (Mamacuna) still exist. The de- 
tails of the structure remind us of those of the buildings of 
the Incas ; and the erection of this convent is therefore at- 
tributed to them ; by skilful policy they were careful to 
show veneration for this spot, so sacred to their subjects. 

Garcillasso relates that the whole of the coast, from Trux- 
illo, a modern town founded in 1535 by Pizarro, to Tumbez, 
for an extent of more than six hundred and twenty-five 
miles, belonged to a people known under the name of Chimus. 



1 The carga equals about 62 lbs. 



PERU. 



395 



Montesinos alone speaks of the origin of this people. His 
idea is that the strangers came from the ocean, and that, 
p 0re warlike and better armed than the natives, they rapidly 
iced to submission all who lived between the sea and the 
intains. We have already remarked that Montesinos' ac- 
counts must be received with caution ; but in this case they 
are corroborated by the singular resemblance of the " hua- 
cas " we are about to describe, with the teocallis of Mexico 
and Central America. Such a resemblance cannot be acci- 
dental. Historians add 1 that, at the time of Pachacutec, 
the ninth Inca, the country was governed by Chimu-Canchu, 
who was greatly dreaded by his neighbors. Yupanqui, son 
of Pachacutec, wished to compel Canchu to acknowledge 
himself the vassal of Pachacutec, and to give up the worship 
of animals, 2 and to adore the sun-god. A bloody war suc- 
ceeded the refusal of Canchu ; but the Chimus were com- 
pelled to give way before superior numbers and submit to 
the conquerors. From this moment until the arrival of the 
Spanish, their history may be summed up as a perpetual 
series of revolts which show their horror of a foreign yoke. 

Their capital, which also bore the name of Chimu, cov- 
ered a considerable area. The ruins extended from the Monte 
Campana on the north to the Rio Moche on the south, over' 
an area of twelve and one half to fifteen miles long by from 
five to five and a half miles wide 

In every direction, for an extent of several leagues, long 
lines of massive walls, huacas, 3 palaces, aqueducts, reservoirs 
of water, and granaries can be made out. Every thing 
proves the power and wealth of a people, the very name of 
whom has remained uncertain. 

Of the monuments, the huacas are the most important. 

1 Garcilasso, /. c, vol. I. p. 234. 

a The animals which were the objects of their adoration were probably sym- 
bolical ; fishes, the tortoise, and the crab represented water ; the serpent and 
the lizard, the earth. The lance, also met with in the temple, is supposed to 
have been the symbol of thunder and lightning. 

3 The word huaca usually denotes a sepulchre, but its meaning is extended to 
•embrace any consecrated or venerated spot. 



39 6 



PRE-IIIS TORIC A MER1 CA . 



This is a name given to truncated pyramids nearly always 
built of stones, cemented with a very plastic clay and form- 
ing a durable conglomerate. The Obispo huaca, one of the 
most remarkable, is no less than one hundred and fifty feet 
high, with a base of five hundred and eighty feet square ; it 
covers, says Squier, 1 an area of eight acres, and it is esti- 
mated that nearly fifty million cubic feet of materials were 
used in its construction. Excavations have been made on 
the faith of legends telling of subterranean chambers filled 
with gold and silver, and Squier, one of the last travellers to 
visit it, tells us that it looks from a distance like the huge 
crater of a volcano. 

Another huaca rises not far from Obispo, in the centre of 
an enclosure of adobe two hundred and fifty-two feet by two 
hundred and twenty-two. Its walls measure fourteen feet 
in height by six feet in breadth at their base. We mention 
it, though its height is not considerable, on account of the 
bones which it encloses, and which are the best proof we 
have of the purpose of at least a certain number of these 
huacas. 

The abodes of the dead, in every variety of form, appear 
to be the last mementos of this people, and are met with all 
about the neighborhood of Chimu. A vast sandy plain 
stretches away to the sea, overlooked by a hill on which 
rises a huaca, like an outpost ; this plain is covered with 
graves, where lay skeletons very irregularly buried in the 
most varied positions, victims doubtless of the battles in 
which the Chimus defended their independence. This is 
a plausible idea, for a great many skulls are fractured as if 
by the blow of a club, and others have holes in them, such 
as might have been made by the bronze arrow-points picked 
up in the same place. 

Skirting along this plain we come to the little village of 
Moche. This village possesses a huaca, which passes as the 
most considerable of any in the country. 2 El templo del Sol 



3 " Peru," p. 120. 

2 Squier : " Peru." p. 130. 



PERU. 



397 



(all the important ruins of Peru are called temples of the 
sun) is a rectangular building eight hundred feet long by 
four hundred and seventy broad. It covers an area of more 
than seven acres, and its greatest height is two hundred feet. 
The mode of construction is very peculiar: Huge blocks of 
adobes, at a short distance from one another, form pillars, 
inclined at an angle of seventy-seven degrees. These pillars 
were covered with a very thick stucco which secured the 
stability of the platform, which was crowned by several 
buildings, of which no traces can be made out. At the 
southern extremity rises a truncated pyramid, formed of re- 
ceding terraces one above the other. Seven of these terraces 
are still standing and an attentive examination justifies us 
in assuming the original number to have been nine; the 
summit was reached by a slope so gentle as to be impercep- 
tible. The rooms, recesses, and subterranean passages have 
been excavated, but without more success than at the 
Obispo huaca. All they revealed was that these two huacas 
were not burial-places, as was at first supposed. 

The palace 1 included an irregular series of buildings in 
adobes, covering an area of several acres, and rising from a 
mound made up of successive terraces. The external walls 
were ornamented in such a manner as to break their mo- 
notony. We give a drawing of one of the most usual modes 
of treatment, which will give an idea of the general effect 
(fig. 163). The interior included a series of halls, rooms, 
corridors and vaulted crypts. One of these rooms is more 
than fifty-two feet in width ; but its length remains uncer- 
tain, on account of the rubbish with which it is choked up. 
It certainly, however, exceeded one hundred feet. ^The 
walls are richly ornamented with stuccos in relief, fine ara- 
besques, and Greek frets, reminding us of those of Mitla. At 
a height of about twelve feet we notice several, niches five 
feet wide. These niches are one of the most striking charac- 
teristics of Peruvian architecture, but it is impossible to as- 

1 We retain the name palace given by Squier. This building, or rather this 
•collection of buildings, was evidently used as a palace. 



39S 



P RE-HI S TOPIC A M ERICA . 



certain their purpose. In other rooms the walls are covered 
with a coating of color, generally dark red. There is a cor- 
ridor, the door opening into which consists of a double row 
of pilasters, whilst the walls are covered with figures in re- 
lief, which have been supposed to represent monkeys, carry- 
ing- on their heads a sort of half moon. This ornament must 
have had some special signification, for it is often repeated 
on the pottery and metal vases of the Chimus. 




Fig. 163. — Ruined walls at Chimu. 

Colonel la Rosa, one of the most eager and fortunate of 
the tapadas, discovered in a vault of the shape of a well, 
which he had to get into through a narrow opening, a con- 
siderable collection of gold and silver vases (fig. 164), some 
of which were covered with ornaments in relief. The body 
of these vases was very thin, those in silver had a large ad- 
mixture of copper, and were in such a state of oxidation that 
they broke in the fingers of the excavators. Unfortunately, 



PERU. 



399' 



nearly all were melted down immediately after their discov- 
ery. The vase of which we give a drawing is in the Squier 
collection, and is one of the few which have been preserved. 
The disorder in which these costly articles, evidently hidden 
in haste, were found, leads us to suppose that an effort was 
made to place them in safety, either during the struggles be- 
tween the Chimus and the Incas, or on the arrival of the 
conquistadores. 

The necropolis of the rulers of Chimu was a short distance 
from their palaces. 2 An excavation has laid bare walls of 
immense thickness, the length of which has nowhere been 
verified. A staircase led to a series 
of vaulted chambers, all with one or 
more niches. In these niches reclined 
dried-up mummies, the skulls of 
some of which were painted red, 
while others, if we accept Colonel La 
Rosa's account, were gilded. The 
bodies were clothed in rich stuffs, 
and wore feather crowns and gold 
and silver ornaments. These orna- 
ments have disappeared, and Squier 
was only able to procure a few frag- 
ments of a stuff made of cotton and 
wool, with figures of lizards and birds 




Fig. 164. — Silver cup found 
at Chimu. 



of the. most varied colors woven in 
with the woof. 

We will not pause to give a detailed account of all the 
ruins of Chimu ; el Presidio, the prison, alone deserves to be 
excepted. This is an enclosure 320 feet by 240, surrounded 
by a wall twenty-five feet high by five and a half at the base. 
In the centre is a mound, the foundations of which, of ex- 
ceptional solidity, rest upon huge blocks of stone. Excava- 
tions have brought to light, a little below the level of the 
soil, forty-five cells arranged in five rows, and without any 
communication between them. Hence the name of the 



2 Squier : "Peru," p. 144. 



400 



PRE-HIS TORIC A M ERICA . 



building, and if it be really a prison the inhabitants of Chimu 
were the first to conceive the idea of what we may call the 
cellular system. Wiener remarks that the present town, 
built in 1533, has been thrown down three times by earth- 
quakes. The solidity of the buildings of the ancient in- 
habitants enabled them to resist these terrible shocks. 

At Chimu we can make out private houses. This is rare 
enough, for in most ruined towns the monuments alone have 
resisted the inroads of time, and the far more formidable 
devastations of man. These buildings, some round, some 
square, were arranged with great regularity in streets or 
squares. The rooms, of course, vary in number and size, the 
largest reached twenty-five feet in length by twelve in 
height. A very curious piece of pottery represents a house 
with a pointed roof, a single door, and a hole in the gable, 
probably to ensure ventilation. These must have been the 
homes of the people, and their number bears witness to a 
considerable population. 1 

Tiaguanaco 2 rises in the centre of a basin formed by two 
lakes of very unequal size, that of Titicaca and that of Aul- 
lagas, on a table-land surrounded by lofty mountains, over- 
looked by Ulampu, which is 18,000 feet high, and is the 
loftiest mountain of South America. This table-land is 
12,000 feet above the level of the sea, almost at the line of 
perpetual snow. At this height vegetation is impossible, no 
cereal can ripen, breathing is difficult, there is nothing pro- 
duced by which life might be sustained. 

In this arid and desolate region, so difficult of access, men 
had, however, erected an important town and remarkable 
buildings. 3 Garcilasso relates that when Mayta-Capac, the 
fourth Inca, for the first time penetrated into the country, 
the sight of these monuments awoke in the Peruvians a pro- 
found astonishment, and they were at a loss to make out 

1 Squier, loc. cit., p. 181. 

2 Such is the name given to the town by the Incas. Its ancient name remains 
unknown. Angrand : " Lettre sur les Ant. de Tiaguanaco." 

3 Desprdins : '"Le Perou avant la domination Espagnole." Rivery and 
'Xschudi : "Ant. Peruanas." 



PERU. 



401 



what processes had been employed in their construction. 
Tiaguanaco was the seat of a civilization at once the most 
ancient and the most brilliant in South America. This con- 
tinued contrast between nature and the works of man is one 
of the most interesting points of the study we are pursuing. 

On his arrival in the midst of the ruins, the explorer is 
struck by the number of monoliths (fig. 165) placed erect at 
regular intervals, reminding us of those of Stonehenge 1 in 
the cyclopean size of the stones employed, 2 and in the pro- 
fusion of sculptures, ornaments, bas-reliefs, and statues of 
colossal size, of which eight have thus far been discovered. 




Fig 165. — Monoliths at Tiaguanaco, 



The ears of the representations of human heads are not 
distorted, which is yet another proof that they are of earlier 
date than the Incas, for we know that it was the Inca Roca 
who introduced the custom of wearing heavy earrings ; 
hence the name of Orejones, given by the Spanish to the 
natives. 

The stones employed are red freestone, a slate-colored 

1 Their height is very unequal ; the highest measures fourteen feet. The 
monoliths of Stonehenge vary from sixteen to twenty-one feet. 

2 Acosta, one of the first Spaniards who entered Tiaguanaco, speaks of stones 
thirty-eight feet long, eighteen broad, and six thick. 



402 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



trachyte, and a very hard and very dark basalt. 1 All these 
stones are admirably polished, and they are so perfectly cut 
that we may compare their workmanship with that of the 
granites of the Egyptian pylones. It is not easy to under- 
stand how the workmen could have executed a task so dif- 
ficult, 2 when iron was unknown to them, and they had to use 
implements either of silex, or a rather soft alloy of bronze 
{champi). The stones are laid one upon the other with such 
precision that the joints are hardly visible, and secured with 
bronze cramps. The ruins of the monuments have served 
to build all the churches of the surrounding valleys, and the 
sculptures of Tiaguanaco are found at a distance of more 
than twenty leagues, even in the walls of the cathedral of 
La Paz, the present capital of Bolivia. 

Wood was not used in these buildings ; at this height 
trees could not grow, and a little stunted brushwood, or the 
dried dung of llamas, was the only fuel to be had. 

We must now rapidly describe the ruins of Tiaguanaco ; 
and we will keep as data for reference, the names which have 
been given to the different buildings; but, as Desjardins 
justly remarks, the popular designations are any thing but 
suitable to the buildings to which they have been applied. 

The fortress* is a mound of rectangular form, which rises 
to a height of one hundred and fifty feet in successive ter- 
races, one behind the other and upheld by massive walls. 
This is again the same arrangement that we meet with in 
Mexico and Yucatan. The platform was covered with build- 
ings, of which the foundations are now scarcely visible. No- 

1 There are large cliffs of red freestone five leagues from the ruins, and beds 
of trachyte and basalt at Yunguyo. The transport through the mountains 
must have added to the immense difficulties which the builders had to contend 
with. 

2 " In no part of the world have I seen stones cut with such mathematical 
precision and admirable skill as in Peru ; and in no part of Peru are there any 
to surpass those which are scattered over the plains of Tiahuanuco." Squier, 
" Peru," p. 279. 

3 Garcilasso tells us that the town of Tiaguanaco was remarkable for its 
large and extraordinary buildings. He speaks of the finest building of the 
country as a mountain of prodigious height made by the hand of man. 



PERU. 



403 



where have the tapadas shown a wilder zeal, excited doubt- 
less by the tradition, which no Indian would think of doubt- 
ing-, that a subterranean communication exists between this 
fortress and the town of Cuzco, more than one hundred 
and sixty leagues off. 

It is not likely that this pyramid, in spite of the name the 
natives have given to it, ever served a defensive purpose. 
The fortresses of Peru have always been built upon places 
indicated by the situation itself. Many archaeologists look 
upon it as a temple and think it was the scene of the 
human sacrifices which are said to have been offered up be- 
fore the domination of the Incas. This is a mere guess, 
which, in our present state of ignorance, we are able neither 
to accept nor to reject. 

North of the fortress rises the temple, the most ancient 
monument of the town. It forms a parallelogram of four 
hundred and forty-five feet by three hundred and eighty- 
eight, and was surrounded by a vast enclosure built of 
blocks of trachyte, which measure from eight to ten feet 
long, by from two to four wide, and are from twenty to 
thirty inches thick. They are of irregular form and less 
carefully prepared than the stones employed in the other 
buildings of Tiaguanaco. 

The Hall of Justice is now nothing but a heap of stones : 
long and patient study would be required to make out the 
exactitude of the account written by Cieca de Leon three 
centuries ago, or even of the plan made by D'Orbigny, in 
1833. According to all appearances the building was a 
parallelogram measuring four hundred and twenty feet by 
three hundred and seventy. Walls surrounded a platform of 
earth, leaving in the centre a trench which reached down to 
the level of the soil. We are ignorant of the purpose of 
this trench, the walls of which were formed by large stones, 
said by Cieca de Leon, to be thirty feet long by fifteen wide, 
and six high, while Squier assigns them smaller dimen- 
sions. A door-way still standing gives access to it, with 
jambs made of a single stone, and a frieze ornamented with 
human faces in relief. 



404 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



East of the Hall of Justice we see a mound eight or ten 
feet high, forming a perfect square of one hundred and sev- 
enty-five feet each way. In the centre rose a building fifty 
feet square, to which Squier has given the name of the Sanc- 
tuary. It was reached by flights of very narrow steps, and 
it is easy to make out a kind of Naos, which was probably a 
goal of pilgrims. Tiagaunaco had, in fact, a great renown 
for sanctity, inferior in nothing to that of Pachacamac, and 




FlG. i 66. — Doorway at Tiaguanaco. 

at certain holidays men flocked to it from all parts of Peru. 

Several monolithic door- ways, similar to those we have de- 
scribed, tower above the ruins surrounding them. One of 
them is probably the most curious monument of the town. 
Imagine a block of trachyte thirteen feet five inches long by 
seven feet two inches high, 1 surmounted by a frieze that 



1 This door is four feet six inches high by two feet nine inches wide. Des- 
jardins, loc. cit., p. 159, gives an excellent description of this monument. 



PERU. 405 

has been damaged by lightning; and then four series of 
cartouches bearing human figures engraved in intaglio, 
some unfinished, and in the centre a very original and com- 
plicated mass of ornamentation (fig. 167). This central or- 




Fig. 167. — Central portion of the great monolith of Tiaguanaco. 

nament represents a human face, surrounded by bas-reliefs 
which are said to be of jaguars and condors. 1 The figures 

1 Angrand, who has visited Tiaguanaco, calls attention to its resemblance, 
even in the smallest details, to the monuments of Palenque, Ococingo, and 
Xochicalco. 



406 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



are probably symbolical ; but the religion of the ancient in- 
habitants of the town is unknown to us, so that we cannot 
interpret them. In the western face are five niches, two of 
which are sunk in the soil, so that the height of the mono- 
lith has still to be determined. 

History and tradition are alike mute on the relations 
which may connect the builders of Tiaguanaco with the 
Qquichuas. We are no less ignorant of those which existed 
between the former and the Aymaras. It is probable, al- 
though we cannot positively assert it, that both sprang 
from Nahua races, and that they came from the north, per- 
haps even from the prolific table-land of Anahuac. s ~ One 
thing Ave think certain : such monuments cannot be the 
remains of a civilization of local growth, nor can a race, 
unaided, have developed from its own genius such archi- 
tectural knowledge. We share the conclusion of Angrand, 
that the civilization of which the remaining ruins bear the 
impress, could not have taken its rise on these frozen 
table-lands. Man must have arrived upon them sufficiently 
armed for the struggle, by previous experience of social 
life. 

Lake Titicaca, of irregular oval form, is one hundred miles 
long by from fifty to seventy wide ; soundings have re- 
cently given a depth of 1,710 feet, while the altitude of 
the lake is about 12,000 feet above the sea. 1 Several 
islands dot its surface, the most important of which is 
that of Titicaca, with rugged rocks and irregular shore- 
line. It is six miles long by three or four wide. Its 
name comes from titi, a tiger, and caca, rock ; according 
to tradition, before the arrival of man the island was in- 
habited by a tiger, that carried on its head a magnificent 
ruby, the light from which illuminated the whole lake. 

This was the sacred island of the ancient Peruvians ; 
and, according to a legend still dear to the inhabitants, 
it was here that the sun re-appeared resplendent after a 
total eclipse which had lasted for several days ; here, too, 



"Wiener, loc. cit., p. 390. 



PERU. 407 

were born Manco-Capac and Oello, the children of the sun, 
and it was from here that they set forth to direct the 
great destinies of their people. 

The island is covered with monuments, the pious offerings 
of the Incas to the manes of their glorious ancestors. We 
mention the palace of the Sun, a convent of priests con- 
nected with the worship of that god, and the palace of the 
Incas. On disembarking from the reed-boat {balsa), on which 
every traveller has to trust himself, one sees successively the 
ruins of three porticos, through which the pilgrims had to 
pass ; the Puma punco, or the gate of the puma, where they 
had to confess their sins ; the Kenti punco, ornamented with 
sculptures representing a bird called Kcnti, where other 
ceremonies had to be gone through with ; and, lastly, the 
Pillco punco, or the door of hope. After having passed 
through it, the faithful worshipper was allowed to approach 
the sacred rock, where the sun had risen, lighting up the 
horizon with its fires. 1 This rock was entirely covered 
with magnificent tapestries, ornamented with sheets of gold 
and silver ; and in all the hollows were deposited the most 
costly offerings. None except the priests might approach 
this venerated spot ; pilgrims contemplated it from afar, re- 
maining in a large enclosure, in which can still be seen the 
foundations of two sanctuaries dedicated to two inferior 
gods, symbolized by thunder and lightning. 

The temple formed a parallelogram of 165 feet by 30, and 
rose from a rock situated at the extremity of the island. 
There has been much discussion as to its site ; we accept the 
opinion of Squier (/. c, p. 369), which appears to us the best 
founded. 

It was reached by steps cut in the rock. The walls 
were of stones, imbedded in a very hard clay and faced 
with a coating of stucco. Inside we notice a whole series 
of the niches so characteristic of Peruvian monuments. The 
principal facade was pierced with five doors, and with two 

1 We take this account from Padre Ramos, who wrote a short time after the 
conquest. 



408 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



windows placed at equal distances between each two doors. 
On the opposite side, a single door opened upon a series of 
terraces, one behind the other ; and by crossing them and 
going down some skilfully arranged steps, two smaller tem- 
ples in the same style were reached. They were erected, as 
were most of the buildings of the island, by Tupac-Yupanqui, 
the eleventh Inca. They are neither so well built, nor so 
loaded with ornament, as are those of Tiaguanaco. In them 
Ave see art in its decadence, an almost certain indication of a 
declining culture. If we believe the Conquistadores, the 
wealth of the temples was immense ; but the priests hastened 
on the arrival of the Spanish, to throw into the lake all their 
gold and silver vases, to prevent their becoming the prey of 
the conqueror. 

El palacio del Inca occupies a magnificent position, com- 
manding a view of the lake and the snow-capped mountains 
overlooking it. It forms a rectangle of somewhat moderate 
dimensions, only fifty-one feet by forty-four, and two stories 
not communicating with each other can be made out, each 
including a series of twelve rooms, arranged according to 
totally different plans. 1 The internal and external walls, like 
those of the temple, were coated with fairly hard stucco, 
painted yellow ; the jarnbs of the doors, and the niches, 
which were the only ornamentation, stood out in red ; the 
roof, of pyramidal form, was made of stones overhanging one 
another. The great scarcity of wood doubtless led to this 
mode of building, which must have presented great difficul- 
ties. 

Lastly, we mention the tambos, where the pilgrims lodged ; 
the pila, or fountain of the Incas, where the water still flows 
from unknown springs through subterranean conduits ; the 
Chingana, or labyrinth, with its vaulted caves, narrow open- 
ings, numerous corridors and tiny rooms. We retain the 
name of Chingana for these ruins, to which the Spanish had 
at first given that of dispensa, supposing that the treasures 
of the temple and the objects used in worship were there 

1 Squier, " Peru," pp. 344, 345, gives the plan of each of these stories. 



PER U. 



deposited. Squier looks upon them as the aclahuasi, which 
was the name given to the residence of the virgins of the 
sun : all these suppositions are possible ; we leave them to 
the consideration of the reader. 

The island of Coati was about six miles from that of Titi- 
caca. It was two and a half miles long by three fourths of 
a mile wide, and played a part in the religious system of the 
Peruvians, almost as important as the island of Titicaca, or 
as that dedicated to the sun. Coati was consecrated to the 
moon. In it we meet again with the gates of purification, 
where took place the same religious ceremonies as at Titi- 
caca, and the tambos set aside for the pilgrims ; but the 
most remarkable ruins are those of the palace of the mama- 
cunas, or virgins dedicated to the sun. This aclahuasi occu- 
pied three sides of a vast court ; the Avails, like those of the 
other buildings of the Incas, were of rough stones, im- 
bedded in clay and covered with very hard cement. On the 
ground-floor thirty-five rooms can still be counted ; one of 
these, which was approached by a vaulted corridor, and was 
the only one in which the Avails AA'ere made of dressed stones, 
was probably a sacred spot. The doors were surrounded by 
niches, which AA'ere the only ornamentation ; for nowhere do 
we find sculptures and arabesques such as are so numerous 
at Tiaguanaco and Chimu. One story, which was reached 
by seA'eral flights of steps, rose aboA-e the ground-floor; and 
the roof, cut by seA*eral pediments, presents a certain resem- 
blance to the Elizabethan style so dear to the English. All 
the rooms communicated with each other ; so that here Ave 
have the same arrangement as in the pueblos of New Mex- 
ico. On the first story two large halls opened on the prin- 
cipal facade ; each had the inevitable niche ; in the first was 
placed a golden statue of the sun, and in the second a silver 
one of the moon, Lastly, the lake was reached by a series 
of terraces and steps, a good deal like those connected with 
the palace of the Inca on the island of Titicaca. The two 
buildings date from the same period ; for though the palace 
of the Virgins was erected during the reign of Huayna- 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



Capac, his father, Tupac-Yupanqui, laid the foundations. 
On the west of the palace we can still observe ruins of a 
semicircular court, in which lived the sacred llamas and 
vicunas. It was the duty of the Mamacunas to weave the 
wool for their own garments and for those of the Incas and 
their children. 

There were other islands on the lake, but we will content 
ourselves with mentioning that of Soto, to which the Incas 
retired in times of anxiety, to seek by fasting and prayer 
the protection of their glorious ancestors. 

Legends relate that, when Manco-Capac and Oello left the 
island of Titicaca, the sun gave to them a golden branch, 
and instructed them to walk on until the branch should sink 
into the earth. It was at Cuzco that the marvel took place, 
and the Incas, full of gratitude to their father, made it the 
capital of their dominions. The town rapidly rose to great 
importance, and without accepting the exaggerated accounts 
of certain Spanish writers, who bring up the number of the 
inhabitants to two hundred thousand, 1 it is evident that a 
numerous and obedient population was indispensable for the 
construction of the buildings, whose imposing ruins still 
astonish the traveller. It is difficult to imagine how men 
can have lived at an altitude of 11,380 feet, on a sterile soil, 
when there were no domestic animals, and maize, the only 
cereal with which they were acquainted, could only ripen in 
a few distant valleys. 

The town rises from steep slopes ; everywhere rocks had 
to be levelled, terraces erected, and earth upheld by walls, 
which remind us of the cyclopean structures of Greece 
or Syria. At Tiaguanaco we found the walls kept in posi- 
tion by bronze cramps ; in the island of Titicaca these walls 
are sometimes of adobes dried in the sun, sometimes of 
stones cemented with clay ; at Cuzco they are of extremely 
hard rocks, such as diorite, porphyry, and great blocks of 

1 The number of inhabitants of the whole province of which Cuzco is the 
capital does not now exceed three hundred thousand souls. Such is the sterility 
of the soil and the struggle for existence, that this number is not at all likely 
■to increase. 



PERU. 



411 



brown trachyte, carried by main force, without the help of 
paths, from the quarries of Anduhaylillas, twenty-two 
miles off. How the stones were transported to Cuzco is not 
easy to say ; but as the Incas had no beasts of draught 
it must have been done through the direct application of 
human force. 1 These blocks were carefully squared and 
then joined together by means of a mortise about one foot 
deep by one and a half feet in diameter, into which fitted a 
tenon of nearly the same size, hewn out of the upper block. 
The walls were kept in place by their own weight alone, for 
Squier, (/. c, p. 435) after a careful examination, declares 
that no cement was used ; he adds that all modern masonry, 
whether executed in Europe or in America, is inferior, when 
compared with that of the ancient capital of the Incas. In 
certain characteristics this architecture recalls that of the 
Egyptians ; but this resemblance, curious as it may appear, 
does not allow any conclusion to be drawn from it ; for the 
primitive ideas of men are of spontaneous origin and develop 
progressively, according to a universal law which can be 
traced everywhere. 

The valley is overlooked by the SacsaJmaman 2 built on a 
perpendicular rock which juts out like a spear between two 
streams, the Huatenay and the Rodadero. From the side 
next the town ascent was impossible and a path was cut out 
on the opposite side, along the Rodadero, forming the sole 
mode of access to this fortress, which, with its triple enclos- 
ure of huge irregular blocks, 3 its terraces, and its para- 
pets, its projecting and re-entering angles resembling 
those of modern bastions, was absolutely impregnable 

1 Squier : " Peru," p. 419. 

2 Comte de Sartiges : Rev. des Deux Mondes, 1851. Squier: "Peru," 
p. 468. Historians differ as to the erection of the Sacsahuaman. Some 
attribute it to Yupanqui, others to Huayna-Capac, the father of Atahualpa and 
Huascar. It is probable that it took many years to build it and that several 
generations of workmen were employed. 

3 The total length of the walls is one thousand eight hundred feet ; the pres- 
ent height of the first enclosure is twenty-seven feet, that of the second seven- 
teen., and that of the third, fourteen. 



412 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



before the invention of artillery. Garcilasso 1 places this 
work on an equality with all that was most celebrated 
in antiquity, for its execution appeared to him impossible, 
even with all the instruments and machines known in 
Europe. Many persons, therefore, he tells us, believed it to 
have been made by enchantment, on account of the famili- 
arity of the Indians with demons, and the Spanish author 
owns that he was not indisposed to come to the same con- 
clusion. Though different in kind Squier's enthusiasm was 
no less great ; he does not hesitate to compare the Sacsahua- 
man with the pyramids, Stonehenge, and the Coliseum. Like 
those glorious monuments, he adds, it ought to defy time 
and remain ah eternal witness to the power of man. 

Three openings in the form of an elongated trapezium 
give access to the outer enclosure, the Tiupuncu, or gate of 
sand, the Acahuanapuncu, and the Viracochapuncu? after the 
name of the guardian god of the town. Hugh blocks of 
stone were made ready for closing these openings at the first 
appearance of danger. In the centre of the citadel still re- 
main several minor strongholds, and among them a round 
tower, the Muyuc-Marca, in which were placed the treasures 
of the Incas, and from which, by one of those freaks of 
fortune of which history presents so many curious examples, 
their last descendant was to fling himself down, after 
the final failure of an insurrection which cost Juan Pizarro 
his life and brought the Spaniards to the brink of destruc- 
tion. 3 

If the fortifications of the citadel bear witness to the skill 
of the architects, the diverting of water of the Rodadero, by 

1 " Hist, des Incas, Rois du Perou," French translation, vol. I., p. 268. 

2 The word Viracocha is still a title of honor amongst modern Peruvians. 
Viracocha-tatai, our father Viracocha, is the salutation with which Europeans 
are always greeted. 

3 Manco-Capac II. was recognized by Pizarro as Inca after the execution of 
Atahualpa. Another legend, dear to the Indians, gives a different account of 
his death. According to it, Manco-Capac, after the final submission of Cuzco, 
retired to the Andes, where he continued to struggle against the Spanish, and 
where he was assassinated by those who had been unable to conquer him. See 
Prescott " Conquest of Peru," bk. III., ch. X. 



PERU. 



413 



means of acequias or canals of remarkable execution, testi- 
fies still more to that of the engineers. We give a drawing 
of one of those aqueducts (fig. 168), which, like that of the 
portico of Kabal (fig. 134), recalls the magnificent works of 
the Romans, which are certainly one of the glories of our 
ancient civilization. 

A hill near the Sacsahuaman is covered with granite 
blocks, richly sculptured and converted into seats ; galleries 
ornamented with steps, terraces, and niches. The Incas 
omitted nothing which could add to the splendor of their 
capital. 

The temple of the sun, the wealth of which is still pro- 
verbial, was situated on an eminence eighty feet above the 
Huatenay. The river was reached by a series of terraces. 
There stretched the celebrated gardens, where, according to 
the account of Spanish chroniclers, the animals, insects, and 
the very trees were of gold and silver. The whole of the 
quarter where the temple was, bore the characteristic name 
of Coricancha, the town of gold. 

The temple, now converted into a Dominican convent, 
occupies one side of a vast court, which preserves the name 
of Intipampa, the field of the sun. The inner aud outer 
walls it is alleged were covered with sheets of gold. This 
last fact may be true, for Squier relates having seen, in vari- 
ous houses in Cuzco, sheets of gold preserved as relics which 
came from the temple of the Sun. These plaques, he tells 
us, were scarcely as thick as a sheet of paper. 

Above the altar, which faced east, was a colossal repre- 
sentation of the sun, also in gold, which, after the conquest, 
became the booty of a certain Mancio Serra de Leguicano, 
a reckless gambler, who lost it on a single throw of the dice. 

All around were laid the dried bodies of the Incas, who 
seemed to be rendering a last homage to their father. 

The court was surrounded with sanctuaries dedicated to 
inferior divinities, such as the moon, the stars, thunder, 
lightning, and the rainbow, visible and active manifestations 
of that Being, superior to all, who was the essence and 



414 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



supreme cause of every thing. In the centre a fountain 
hewn out of a stone of considerable size, still gives the 
monks the water they need. This stone, like those used in 
making the walls of the temple, was also covered with sheets 
of gold, and Garcilasso relates that he himself saw the water 
flow into it through pipes also of gold. 

The Aclahnasi was only separated from the temple by a 
large building which served as a lodging for the priests. 




Fig. 168. — Aqueduct on the Rodadero. 



The walls are still standing, for a length of 750 feet, their 
height varying from 20 to 25. They bear witness to the 
splendor of the building, to which the daughters of the Incas 
were sent at a most tender age, and where they were sub- 
mitted to a rigorous discipline. 

Nor could the Incas neglect their private dwellings, in the 
town in which they lived. Each Inca erected a palace at h 
ascension, and at his death this palace became the residence 
of his son. That of Huayna-Capac, the most illustrious of 



PERU. 



415 



his race, was no less than 800 feet long; all its other dimen- 
sions were on a similar scale, and the Jesuits have been able 
to build a church, the viceroys a prison and a barrack, in these 
structures of impregnable solidity. The palace of Atahualpa 
was of adobes ; and the room is still shown in which he was 
imprisoned, and which he had to fill with gold for his ran- 
som. Opposite to the palace of the Inca Roca were the 
schools, Yachahuasi, which he had founded, and which he 
took pleasure in superintending ; there the Amautes, literally 
the wise men, taught the great deeds of the Incas, and pre- 
served the legends relating to them. Interlaced serpents 
were sculptured upon the door of the palace of Huayna- 
Capac, and they are also met with on the walls of Yachahu- 
asi, and of several of the other buildings of Cuzco. These 
sculptures, which are exceptional among the Inca buildings, 
have evidently a mythological signification which evades us. 
In other places hieroglyphics are supposed to exist, which 
have been compared to those of Mexico or Brazil ; but all 
relating to them is the boldest guesswork. 

The Incas appear to have taken extreme precaution 
against dangers unknown to us. Were these dangers the 
revolts of their own subjects, or were they the incursions of 
the ferocious Chinchas, who lived in the impenetrable forests 
watered by the Amazon and its tributaries ? We cannot 
tell ; but it is certain that important fortresses rise from 
many points in Peru ; besides the Sacsahuaman, of which we 
have just spoken, we may mention Ollantay-Tambo, Pisac, 
Piquillacta, and Choccequirao. 

The Ucayali, 1 one of the branches of the Amazon, flows, 
across the fertile valley of Yucay, between steep rocks, over- 
looked by the distant lofty snow-laden summits of the Andes. 
These rocks bear witness to the work and the energy of 
man ; for on every side, even on points apparently inacces- 
sible, and at heights that the condors alone would appear 
to have been able to reach, we see niches, caves artificially 

1 This river successively bears the names of Vilcamaycv Urubamba, and 
Yucay. 



4*6 



PRE-HIS TORIC A M ERICA . 



enlarged, mausoleums supported on pillars crowned by a 
lintel, and sculptures. Among these sculptures is a puma 
sucking her cub. 

Ollantay-Tambo, fifteen leagues north of Cuzco, was in- 
tended to defend the valley of Yucay, and was crowned by 
lofty towers, now almost entirely ruined. 1 Inside are heaps 
of huge blocks of red porphyry, which enable us to form an 
idea of the importance of the fortress. Some of these blocks 
bear finely-executed ornaments, resembling those of Tia- 







s$ ^ ^ f 








Fig. 169. — Wall with niches, forming part of the fortification of Ollantay- 
Tambo. 

guanaco. Walls twenty-five feet high, with battlements like 
those of the strong castles rising from the banks of the 
Rhine, cover the sides of the mountain, and stretch away in 
zigzags to precipices, which form an insuperable barrier. 

On one of the perpendicular rocks, more than nine hun- 
dred feet high, are seen the ruins of a little building, Avith a 
door opening on to the brink of the precipice. The Spanish 



1 " Cieca de Leon," chap. XCIV. Garcilasso : " Comm. Reales," book V. 
chap. -XXVII. Markham : " Cuzco and Lima." Squier : " Peru," p. 482. 



PERU. 



417 



gave to it the name of la horca del hombre, and, according to 
legend, criminals were taken to it and flung into the abyss. 
A little farther off is the horca de mnjer, where faithless 
wives had to undergo the same punishment. 

We will not leave the valley of Yucay without speaking 
of a round tower situated on an isolated rock and made of 
rough stones, faced with a coating of stucco. Inside are 
niches, and outside is a sculpture, in which an unskilful artist 
has endeavored to represent a serpent. Above the door, 
and simulating windows, we meet again with the Egyptian 
tau that we have already seen at Palenque. These orna- 
ments, and the carefulness with which the building is made, 
have led to the belief that this tower was not a post of ob- 
servation or defence, but more likely a temple. The pecul- 
iar veneration of the ancient Peruvians for isolated rocks 
justifies this idea. The Indians of to-day have inherited the 
superstition of their predecessors ; and none of them would 
dare to pass the tower of Galea without bowing profoundly 
to it, throwing down a stone, and muttering an unintelligible 
invocation. 

The valley of Pauca-Tambo is parallel with that of Yucay, 
from which it is separated by the chain of the Andes. It 
was protected by the vast fortified enclosure of Pisac. All 
the declivities which could aid in ascent are crowned with 
towers ; all the inequalities of the rock are filled in and faced 
with slabs, covered with very hard and highly polished 
stucco, impossible to climb over ; every strategic point is de- 
fended by works, unsurpassed by any thing in modern 
science. These fortifications stretch for considerable dis- 
tances, and form, if we may so express it, a vast intrenched 
camp, in which whole tribes could live protected from at- 
tack, and devote themselves in peace to their agricultural 
occupations. 

We must not omit to mention some very curious monu- 
ments, to which the name of intiJiuatana 1 has been given. 

1 Inti signifies sun ; huatana, the point where a thing is fixed ; so that Inti- 
huatana signifies, literally, the point where the sun is fixed. 



4i8 



P RE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



These are isolated rocks, the summit of which has been com- 
pletely levelled, and which are surmounted by a little col- 
umn in the form of a truncated cone. These intihuatana 
are met with in all the provinces of Peru. Squier mentions 
several in the valley of Pisco ; one overlooking the little 
town of Ollantay-Tambo, and another at the foot of the 
terrace of Colcompata at Cuzco. It is very probable that 
one of these intihuatanas rose before the temple of the sun, 
and traces of another can still be seen in front of the temple 
of the island of Titicaca. Their purpose is still very uncer- 
tain. 




Fig. 170. — The Intihuatana of Pisac. 



That of Pisac is one of the best preserved, doubtless on 
account of its nearly inaccessible position (fig. 170). It is 
eleven inches in diameter at its base and nine at its summit ; 
it is sixteen inches high, and it is said that but a few years 
ago it was surrounded by a champs collar, which, with so 
many other interesting relics, has become the booty of tapa- 
das. The whole rock is surrounded with walls, in the shape 
of the letter D, and made of squared stones, perfectly 
polished, and hewn in such a manner as to accommodate 
themselves to every inequality of rock. 



1 Champi is the name for Peruvian bronze. Squier : " Peru," p. 525. 



PERU. 



419 



Various guesses have been hazarded as to the purpose of 
the intihuatanas. The most plausible is undoubtedly that 
representing them to be gnomons, used for measuring the 
height of the sun. 

The fortress of Piquillacta was situated .on the south of 
the possessions of the first Incas, not far from the quarries 
which supplied the stone for the buildings of Cuzco. A 
wall seven hundred and fifty feet long by thirty six feet wide 
at the base, and thirty-four feet high, is still standing to 
mark its site. 

The jambs of the two entrances are of dressed stone, the 
other parts of rubble-stone, set in clay. Near Piquillacta 
was the ancient town of Muyna, where the Inca Yahuar- 
Huacac took refuge in his terror at an invasion of the Chin- 
chas, 1 and where his son Viracocha compelled him to reside, 
after having conquered the rebels by his courage and bound 
his brow with the royal Uautu. 2 

On the banks of the Apurimac, which would appear to be 
the principal branch of the Amazon, on the crest of the but- 
tress of a glacier surrounded by precipices, rose the fortress 
of Choccequirao, its name, meaning precious cradle, pointing 
out its purpose, which was to serve as the residence of the 
heirs to the crown of the Incas. Later, this stronghold was 
the refuge of the last survivors of the race of Manco- 
Capac. 

Nothing could equal the wild grandeur of these places. 3 
We are astonished at finding the industry of man gaining a 
footing on the rocks where the condor had built its eyrie. 
The first ruins to meet the eye of the traveller are those of 
the outer circuit of defence. Angrand has suggested that 

1 Garcilasso, /. c, vol. I. 

s The llautu was a bandage which passed three or four times round the head, 
and was ornamented with a fringe falling over the eyes. It was black for the 
members of the Inca's family, yellow for his direct descendants, and the Inca 
alone had the right of wearing a red llautu. He also wore as insignia the 
Masca-paycha, or red aigrette, and the capac-ongo, or royal mantle. 

1 Desjardins : " Le Pe'rou avant la Conquete Espagnole," p. 138 et seq. The 
Comte de Sartiges in 1834, and Angrand, 1847, are the only Frenchmen who 
have visited Choccequirao, and it is from them we take these details. 



420 



PRE-HIS TORIC A M ERICA . 



the buildings next seen served as a prison, as he had noticed 
that the doors were closed with stones of enormous weight. 
A hundred and fifty-three yards lower, following the inclina- 
tion of the crest, we come to the palace and to the bath-room, 
in which we can still see the site of the bath, which must 
have been in gold, as were all the vessels and utensils in use 
amongst the Incas. Farther on are two buildings which, 
according to Angrand, were: the one a banqueting-hall, 
about forty-five yards long by thirteen wide, with windows 
resembling those of Egyptian monuments ; the other, a 
menagerie. In the walls of the menageries are found pro- 
jecting stone rings, to which were chained ferocious animals 
sent to the Incas from all parts of their dominions. 

The palace includes three groups of rectangular buildings, 
two of them about eleven yards broad by sixteen and a half 
long; the third, eight and a half yards by sixteen and a half ; 
the two first consisting of a ground-floor and one upper story. 
They are divided lengthways by an internal wall, which 
forms two elongated chambers on each story. The third 
building had only a ground-floor, on a level with the upper 
story of the other two, the terrace crowning it giving access 
to them. 

On the other side of the palace, at a considerable eleva- 
tion, is a regular fortress, which commands the entrance, and 
leaves no outlet but four openings made in the walls on the 
summit of the crest ; beyond these four doors are ruins, 
probably those of a temple. 

We might multiply such descriptions, for all over the vast 
country of the Incas we meet with imposing buildings, 
often elevated at inaccessible heights. Do the Indians know 
of other paths than those that the few travellers of to-day 
dare attempt ? This is a point that remains doubtful ; 
but even if practicable routes should be discovered, we shall 
still be confronted with difficulties apparently insurmount- 
able, though they do not seem to have at all baffled the 
ancient inhabitants of the country. 

More useful works have been preserved as witnesses to the 



PERU. 



421 



government of the Incas. Roads intersected the country 
at a time when there were none in Europe. Two of these 
roads went from north to south, from Quito toward Cuzco ; 
one, for a distance of 1,200 miles, crossing the sierras and 
buttresses of the Andes, buried beneath perpetual snow. 
This was the road followed by Almagro, when he was sent 
by Pizarro, to bring Chili to submission. The other, finished 
by the Inca Huayna-Capac, followed the coast, and its 
length was 1,600 miles. These roads, which Humboldt 
does not hesitate to compare with the Roman causeways, 
were from eighteen to twenty-six feet wide ; they were pro- 
tected from landslips by Avails of earth, were paved with 
blocks of stones and in some parts covered with broken 
stone, a first attempt at macadamizing. They always fol- 
lowed the straight line, crossing the steepest slopes, as the 
Indians who do not know how to turn by an obstacle still 
do. The ravines and marshes were crossed by embankments 
of masonry ; rocks were cut through, sometimes for a con- 
siderable distance ; streams and torrents were spanned by 
bridges made of the fibres of the aloe, creepers or reeds, the 
lightness of which was not incompatible with strength. The 
mode of construction of these bridges, which are still in use, 
is very simple. Two ropes of maguey or agave fibre a few 
inches in diameter, pass over masonry piers and are firmly 
secured at a distance of sixteen to twenty feet from the pier. 
Vertical ropes are fastened to these cables, and on them 
rests the platform of the bridge, made of woven reeds. The 
Peruvians, however, knew how to make masonry bridges. 
That of Rumichaca, for instance, dates from the time of 
Huayna-Capac. 1 Here and there, where vegetation was 
possible, the road was planted with trees, which ensured 
shade and freshness, and in the mountains, tambos, where 
the wearied traveller could rest, were built at convenient 
distances. 

Such is the account given by Spanish historians 2 who 

1 Bollaert : " Ant. Ethn. and other Researches," p. go. 

2 We mention especially Zurate, " Hist, del Descubrimiento y Conquista del 



422 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



have, however, somewhat exaggerated the importance of 
these works. Recent researches have established the truth. 
At certain points of the route, especially in the most diffi- 
cult parts, the road was not cut, the rock was not levelled, 
but the direction to be followed to avoid the precipices was 
merely indicated by stakes. In declivities steps had been 
made, upheld only by a row of little stones ; these are not 
flights of steps suitable for aiding the ascent, but merely em- 
bankments to prevent landslips. As the Peruvians had no 
beasts of burden, journeys were made on foot, and freight 
was carried on the shoulders of men. Under these circum- 
stances, these paths, defective as they must appear to us, 
met all the needs of the inhabitants. 

We have already said that water, so precious in tropical 
climates, was carefully collected in reservoirs placed in ele- 
vated situations, and then conducted, by masonry acequias or 
irrigation canals to distances often of many miles. " I have 
followed them for days together, and have seen them wind- 
ing amidst the projections of hills, curving in and out as 
the topography required ; here sustained by high walls of 
masonry, there cut into the living rock, and in some cases con- 
ducted in tunnels, through sharp spurs of the obstructing 
mountains. Occasionally they were carried over narrow val- 
leys or depressions in the ground, on embankments fifty or 
sixty feet high ; but generally they were deflected around 
opposing obstacles, on an easy and uniform descending 
grade" (Squier: "Peru," p. 218). To give a faint idea of 
what these works were, we mention the valley of La Nepana, 
a reservoir made by means of a dam of strongly cemented 
pieces of rock, shutting in two deep gorges. This reservoir 
was three fourths of a mile long by a width of half a mile. 
The walls were eighty feet thick at their base, and could 
bear the greatest pressure. Wiener also mentions a remark- 
able hydraulic work, in which large cisterns, in communica- 

Peru," Anvers, 1855, book I., ch. XIII. Consult also Cieca de Leon.(ch. 
XXXVII.), Garcilasso, and amongst modern writers, Humboldt, Rivero, and 
Tsch'udi. 



PERU. 



423 



tion with each other, conducted at a considerable height the 
water of the Cerro de Pasco to the Cerro de Sipa. 

Constructions of minor importance, but nevertheless of 
great interest, are to be seen at Huanuco Viejo, 1 where stood 
a palace of the Incas (fig. 171), and where, according to a 
tradition perhaps founded on the numerous sculptured pu- 
mas ornamenting the walls, the monarchs kept a- menagerie. 
Monumental doors, 2 somewhat resembling the Egyptian 
pylones, gave access to these buildings. 

Water-works were necessary not only for the food-supply 
of the population, but also for irrigation. Agriculture was 




Fig, 171. — The castle of Huanuco. 



held in great honor amongst the ancient Peruvians, and no 
difficulty deterred them. In the isolated dunes which 
formed the coast, the sand was dug out to a great depth, 
until a naturally humid soil was reached, when the trenches 
were filled with guano, the usefulness of which was already 
appreciated. The gardens of the Inca, for such is the name 
given to them, still retain their fertility, and it is on a soil 

1 Huanuco Viejo, a short distance from the celebrated silver mines of Cerro 
de Pasco, is so called to distinguish the ancient from the modern town, situated 
sixteen leagues farther to the east. Xeres says that the former was nearly three 
leagues in circuit. The stones, he adds, were admirably worked and set one 
upon the other without cement or mortar of any kind. Paz-Soldan : " Geog. 
del Peru," p. 271. 

2 " These ruins are interesting from the six stone portals, one within the 
-other." — Bollaert, /. c, p. 199. 



424 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



thus prepared that grow the richest vines which surround 
the town of lea. 

In a previous work we remarked 1 that burial has ever 
been one of the most solemn subjects of thought for hu- 
manity, and a religious sentiment has always been connected 
with funeral honors. To deprive men of burial, said Euripi- 
des, is to offend the gods. The history of Peru in its turn 
tells us the same story ; tombs are everywhere numerous, 
and the modes of burial are most varied. At Chimu corpses 
were buried in a doubled-up position, and set in the midst of 
sand, the beds of which gradually decreased in size, so that 
the necropolis formed a pyramid as it rose. 2 Near Acora, a 
little town not far from the lake of Titicaca, the bodies were 
placed under megalithic stones, 3 reminding us of the dol- 
mens and cromlechs of Europe (fig. 172). One vast plain is 
covered with stones placed erect, some forming circles, some 
squares, and often covered in with large slabs closing the 
sepulchral chamber. 

These sepulchres are the work of the Aymaras, and they 
probably date from the period when these people obeyed 
independent chiefs. All we know of their history is that 
their chiefs bore the title of Curacas, which they retained 
under the rule of the Incas. Later, as the country ad- 
vanced, clumsy monuments gave place to more magnificent 
tombs ; hence the towers or chulpas which, mixed with 
megaliths, cover the whole of the plain of Acora. The 

1 " Les Premiers Hommes," vol. II., p. 235. 

2 Desjardins (/. c, p. 168) describes one of the largest of these sculptures, the 
Huaca San Pedro. 

3 Megaliths are also met with, bearing witness to a more advanced art. 
Wiener speaks of a cyclopean structure near Vilcabamba, and Squier reproduces 
an interesting megalith which rises near Chicuito. It is a rectangle sixty feet 
long, formed of huge blocks of stones driven into the earth, and rising fourteen 
feet above the level of the soil. There is but one opening, facing east, and 
marked by two blocks of considerable dimensions. In South America a certain 
importance is attached to these megaliths. " Pero lo que sin duda es aun de 
mas importancia, es encontrarse por muchos puntos del territorio Peruano, con- 
strucciones en piedra, iguales por el estilo y el caracter a esos cromlechs, dol- 
menes, circulos del sol o druidicos de la Escandinavia las islas Britanicas, 
Francia, Asia " etc. (Ameghino, vol. I., p. 100). 



PERU. 



425 



chulpas consist of a mass of masonry of rough stones and 
clay, faced with huge blocks of trachyte or basalt. The 
mass is so put together as to form a cist, in which the corpse 
was placed ; the door, generally very low, always faces east, 
in honor, doubtless, of the rising sun. Almost all have a 
cornice near the top, and are set upon a little platform of 
slabs. Squier mentions one more than twenty-four feet 
high. An opening eighteen inches square gave access to 
the sepulchral chamber, which was eleven feet square by 
thirteen high. He succeeded in getting into it after great 
difficulties, but only to find that others had entered it before 




Fig. 172. — Megalithic tomb at Acora. 

him, and to pick up a few remains of human bones and some 
miserable bits of pottery. 

We give a drawing of one of these chulpas, situated in the 
mountain near the village of Palca (fig. 173). It rises above 
a trench four feet deep, forming a regular cave, upheld by 
walls of rough stone. It is sixteen feet high, and at about 
two feet from the summit is a cornice, formed of ichu i a 
coarse grass, which grows in the mountains, greatly com- 
pressed and then cut with the aid of sharp instruments. 1 
The masonry is a mixture of pebbles and clay, coated with 
stucco, and then painted white and red so as to form various 



1 Similar cornices are met with in various places. Squier mentions one at 
Tiuhuani (" Peru," p. 368). 



426 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



designs. Human bones, mixed together in the strangest 
disorder, formed a deposit more than a foot deep in the 
sepulchral chamber. 

The chulpas are generally of square or rectangular form ; 
sometimes, however, we meet with round towers, which by 
a peculiar arrangement gradually increase in diameter from 
the base to the summit. The internal arrangements differ 
no less ; some enclose arched vaults, others cists shut in by 
slabs of stone, or, again, mere niches. Numerous in Bolivia, 
and in the whole of the basin of Lake Titicaca bounded by 



the Andes and the Cordillera, they can be seen in groups, 
varying from twenty to a hundred, on the sides of the 
mountains or on isolated rocks ; everywhere they form one 
of the characteristic features of the landscape. 

Near Tiuhuani, on the eastern bank of the lake, we meet 
with two chulpas, each containing two sepulchral cists. 
They are painted red, yellow, or white, and as rain is ex- 
tremely rare throughout the whole district, the colors are 
remarkably well preserved. These double chulpas, regular 





Fig. 173 — Chulpa near Palca. 



PERU. 



427 



family tombs, contained as many as twelve skeletons. In 
the Escoma valley a chulpa is mentioned, with two sepul- 
chral chambers, each with a separate entrance. It has been 
excavated several times, and completely stripped by tapa- 
das. Some fragments of human bones alone remain as wit- 
ness to its original purpose. 

Las Casas 1 relates that, at the time of the Spanish con- 
quest, the Peruvians still practised this mode of burial. In 
certain provinces, he adds, their sepulchres are towers of 




Fig. 174. — Earthenware vase from an ancient Peruvian tomb. (One quarter 
original size.) 

massive construction, hollowed out at the height of an 
estado (six feet). In certain spots they are round, in others 
square. They are always very lofty, and numerous enough 
to cover large spaces. Some of the natives built them on 
eminences half a league and more from towns, so that they 
look from a distance like populous villages. Every one has 
a separate ancestral tomb. The dead are wrapped in llama 
skins, on which care is taken to mark the eyes and mouth ; 
the corpses are then covered with other garments, and 

1 " Hist. Apologetica de las Indias." 



428 



PRE- HIS TOPIC A ME RICA . 



placed ill a sitting posture, when the doors of the tombs,, 
which always open to the east, are walled up. In other 
places the dead are wrapped up as we have described, and 
then placed in their houses, often among the living. They 
do not emit any smell, on account of the skins in which they 
are strongly sewn up, and also on account of the cold, which 
rapidly mummifies them. The chiefs are put in the place of 




Fig. 175. — -Vase from a Peruvian • Fig. 176. — Vase from an ancient tomb 
tomb. (One fourth natural in the Bay of Chacota. (One 

size.) fourth natural size.) 

honor of their dwelling, loaded with the insignia of their 
rank and the trinkets they affected. 

On the coast of the Pacific the modes of burial were dif- 
ferent. Near Quito, north of the kingdom of the Incas, the 
body, reduced to a state of complete desiccation, was de- 
posited in a tomb constructed of stone or adobe, and vases, 
often of peculiar form (figs. 174, 175, 176), were placed near 
the. corpse. These vases 1 w r ere intended to hold maize or 



1 Some vases of nearly similar form are still used to prepare infusions of 



PERU. 429 

chicha, the latter obtained by the fermentation of roasted 
maize, which has always been the favorite national beverage. 




Fig. 177. — Aymara mummy. 
From these tombs have been taken little copper hatchets ; 

Coca. (" Erythroxylon coca.") An excellent monograph, on this plant, by Dr. 
L. A. Cosse, was published at Brussels in 1S61. 



43Q 



PKE-HIS TORI C A M ERICA . 



looking-glasses, some of polished stone or obsidian, others of 
metal ; pendants for the nose or the ears ; bracelets and little 
figures in gold or silver. In the extreme south of the whole 
of the valley of Copiapo (Chili) is covered with mound- 
shaped huacas, measuring as much as twelve feet in height, 
by twenty or thirty long. Darwin, in his voyage round the 
world, assisted at the excavation of one of these tumuli,, 
which contained two skeletons, one of a man and one of a 
woman. (Fig. 177.) Judging from the objects picked up 
in this tomb, its inmates had belonged to the poorest class. 
These objects were large earthenware jars of the coarsest 
workmanship, stone arrow-points, copper pins, and roughly 
hewn stones, intended for grinding maize. 1 

Between these two extremes we meet with other tombs, 
varying according to the wealth of the survivor. Some hu- 
acas near Arica, excavated in 171 2, have brought to light 
mummies wrapped in rich cloth, having beside them vases 
of gold or silver. 2 The bodies, mummified by the dryness of 
the climate, for they show no trace of embalming, were in a 
sitting posture ; several held in the mouth a little golden 
plaque. 3 In 1836, other explorers resumed these excavations, 
on the shores of the Bay of Chacota, a mile and a half from 
Arica. 4 The tombs were all of circular form, their diameter 
varying from three to five feet, and their depth from five to 
six. They were often surrounded by a cromlech of erect 
stones, whilst others were surmounted by a mound. All re- 
tained traces of large fires lighted after the burial, doubtless 
in accordance with a sacred rite. 

The greater number of these tombs had been violated. 
Those still intact enable us to judge of the mode of burial ; 
some of the corpses had evidently been dried before inhu- 
mation ; others were covered with a resinous substance. 5 

1 "Voyage of the Beagle." Bollaert, /. c, p. 175. 

2 Bollaert, loc. cit., p. 151. 

3 Rivero et Tschudi : " Antiguidades Peruanas." 

4 J. Blake : " Notes on a Collection from the Ancient Cemetery of the Bay of 
Chacota" ; " Report Peabody Museum," vol. II., p. 177, etc. 

6 Agassiz mentions mummies preserved by this process at Pisagua. Accord- 



PERU. 



431 



All were seated on slabs of stone, the arms folded on the 
breast, the legs drawn up, and the head resting on the knees. 
They were clothed in coarse linen cloth, sewn with strong 
cactus thorns like needles, which were left in the garment. 
The bodies wore all the objects used during life ; men (fig. 




Fig. 178. — Peruvian mummy. 

178) had their weapons, implements, and ornaments; chil- 

ing to Putnam, those from the necropolis of Ancon, are not embalmed by the 
aid of resinous substances. On this latter cemetery, Wiener (" Peru and 
Bolivia"), who has excavated numerous tombs, should be consulted, and also 
the magnificent work by Reuss and Stiibel : " The Necropolis of Ancon in 
Peru." 



432 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



dren their toys ; women, 1 their distaffs filled with wool, and 
balls of thread, wooden needles, often of great fineness, 
combs, and several instruments of which the use is unknown ; 
little shells used for money 2 ; bags containing either hair 
(the last memento given to the dead) or provisions for the 
long voyage — such as ears of maize or coca leaves. The 
Peabody Museum owns a regular work-box, containing a 
woman's implements for needle-work, which was found under 
a huaca of Peru. 




Fig. 179. — Mummy of a woman, found at the Bay of Chacota. 

All these objects, thanks to the dryness of the climate, 
are in a wonderful state of preservation. 3 With touching 
thoughtfulness, the relations of the dead woman, whose re- 
mains we figure, had placed near her not only vases of 
every shape (fig. 174, 175, 176, 180), but also the cloth that 

1 The figure we give (fig. 179), is reproduced from a photograph, prepared 
after all the objects worn by the woman had been taken off. 
2 . " Littorina Peruviana." 
■■ "Bull. Soc. Anth.," 1881, p. 550. 



PERU. 



433 



she had begun to weave, and which death had prevented 
her from finishing. 1 Her hair, of a light-brown color, was 
fine and carefully kept. The legs, from the ankle to the 
knee, were painted red, a fashion probably dear to Peruvian 
coquetry, for care had been taken to place near the dead 
little bladders full of resinous gum and red powder for her 
toilet in the new life that had begun for her. 2 

At Iquique, one huaca contained no less than five hundred 
bodies, all seated and wrapped in long mantles of different 
colors. 3 Some rites are still unexplained ; for instance, in 




Fig. 180. — Bowl from a tomb at Chacota Bay. 

1830, a huaca was discovered surrounded by a circle of red 
stones, in the centre of which was found the skeleton of a 
woman, and near her those of four men, on each of which 
three large stones had been placed. Amongst the numerous 
objects belonging to this sepulchre, the statuette of a 
woman is mentioned, with the face of silver. 

Pachacamac, as we have said, was a sacred place to the 

1 At Pachacamac excavations have brought to light a loom of half-woven 
tissue. 

2 The Galibi women still paint their legs with Toncou, a vegetable powder of 
a fine red, which they dissolve in oil extracted from certain oleaginous seeds. 

s Bollaert, /. c, p. 179. 



434 



PRE-IIISTORIC AMERICA. 



ancient inhabitants of Peru, and the temple was a goal of 
pilgrimage. Its approaches are one vast cemetery, and the 
sandy soil, impregnated as it is with nitre, has preserved to 
this day the mummies entrusted to the ground. In some 
places it is easy to make out three or four layers of bodies ; 
generations of worshippers rest beneath the shadow of the 
walls that were the object of their adoration. The tombs 
were made of adobe, and were thatched over with reeds. 
The bodies were doubled up, or rather coiled round, and 
then wrapped in very fine cotton cloth, and in coverings 



of the mummies. By the side of each w r ere placed the im- 
plements of his profession ; near the fisher, net and fish- 
hooks, near the young girl, household utensils. With the 
vases always met with in Peruvian sepulchres were often 
found at Pachacamac roughly cut bits of quartz or crystal, 
which were, according to Father Arriaga, 1 Canopas, the 
Lares Penates, or gods of the hearth, who were to continue 
their protection to the deceased in the new life on which he 
was entering ; the canopas, whose duty it was to watch over 
the family, were always given to the eldest son. 




Fig. 181. — Pitcher from an ancient Peru- 
vian sepulchre. (Natural size.) 



made from the wool of the 
vicuna or the alpaca. Here 
too the tombs contained 
the most diverse objects. 
The rich retained their 
ormaments, but the poor 
had to be content with a 
little bit of copper, which 
served the purpose of the 
obojus set aside for Charon 
in the funeral rites of 
Greece. Wiener, in his 
excavations at Ancon, 
found a great number of 
these little silver or bronze 
plates placed in the mouths 



1 w Extirpacion de la Idolatria del Peru," Lima, 1621. 



PERU. 



435 



Leaving the Pacific we find caves, artificially widened if 
necessary, often serving as burial-places. In the valley of 
Yucay, as in that overlooked by the fortress of Pisac, the 
almost inaccessible sides of the mountains are covered with 
them to a height of several hundred feet ; and to this day 
the few inhabitants of the country call them, in memory of 
their inmates, Tantama-Marca, or the precipices of desola- 
tion. The funereal rites were similar to those we have de- 
scribed ; the bodies were seated, sometimes wrapped in cot- 
ton cloth, sometimes in mere mats, but all have the head 
resting on the knees ; some vases and very rude implements 
made up all the furniture of the tombs. 

In the valley of Paucar-Tambo the rocks had been levelled, 
and the tombs wrought of dressed stone. They were walled 
up after the burial, and the stones were covered with a coat- 
ing of stucco, painted in brilliant colors. The care bestowed 
on these tombs was an irresistible attraction to the tapadas ; 
they were the first to be violated, and every thing that 
they contained was dispersed, without any good results for 
science. 1 

Many travellers also mention a cave of some extent, which 
has received the appropriate name of Infernillos? At the 
entrance are rude sculptures, representing personages of both 
sexes. On the walls we notice, several times repeated, the 
impression of a human hand, traced either with cinnabar or 
oxide of iron, or yet more simply by the application of an 
actual hand, wet with a coloring substance. This is the 
memo Colorado, of the meaning of which we are ignorant, but 
which is met with at various points in the two Americas, and 
also in Australia. 3 

The Peruvians distinguished the intelligent and immaterial 
soul (runct) from the body, the name of which {allpctcamascci), 
animated earth, is characteristic. 4 They believed in a future 
life ; and the man who had well employed the time of his 

1 Squier : " Peru," pp. 491-531. 

2 Bollaert, /. c., p. 152. 

3 Miles : " Trans. Ethn. Soc. of London," vol. III. Nature, May 7, 1881. 

4 Desjardins, /. c, p. 100. 



43^ 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



mortality went after death to the Hananpacha, the world 
above, where he awaited his reward. If, on the contrary, he 
had led a bad life, he was flung into the Urupacha, or world 
below. This future life, whether happy or unhappy, was to 
be entirely material. How else can we interpret the very 
different objects collected in the tombs, among the Aymaras 
as well as among the Qquichuas, among the predecessors of 
the Incas, and among the contemporaries of the Spaniards? 

The belief in the immortality of the soul, the recompense 
of the good and the punishment of the wicked, necessarily 
implies that in the existence of beings superior to man, ex- 
ercising over him an influence alike during his life and after 
his death. The Peruvians worshipped, as we have more than 
once remarked, the sun, the moon, the stars, and thunder. 
In certain districts the earth was the object of their worship ; 
in others, the sea, the springs, the mountains, chiefly those 
covered with snow {razu). Stones were also objects of 
the veneration of the Peruvians. This is explained by one 
of their traditions, which relates that Viracocha had endowed 
stones with life, and thus created the first men and the first 
women. 

Side by side with the visible forces of nature existed cer- 
tain inferior gods : Papapconopa, who was invoked to ensure 
a good harvest of potatoes (sweet potatoes) ; Canllama, the 
protector of flocks ; Chichic, who, like the god Termes, en- 
sured respect for landed property ; and Lacarvillca, who pre- 
sided over works of irrigation. In other places the dead 
themselves were invoked as the protectors of their families. 
These gods were probably the modified representatives of a 
more ancient fetichism, which have outlived the people 
among whom it originated. Some less civilized tribes 
adored animals, such as the condor, the puma, the owl, and 
the serpent ; and even the products of the earth, such as 
maize and potatoes. But these different people, in submit- 
ting to the laws of the Peruvians, were converted, willingly 
or by force, to the worship of the sun. The wars of the 
Incas had an essentially religious character, 1 and may be 



1 Desjardins, /. c, p. 95. 



PERU. 



437 



compared with those of the Mussulmans, at the time when 
Islamism, propagated by the sword, spread with such rapid- 
ity over whole regions. 

Recent investigations have shown that, at a certain period, 
Peruvian priests taught the existence of a supreme god, a 
Dens ignotus, to whom no temple was dedicated, 1 and whose 
image none were permitted to make. 2 He was adored under 
the name of Pachacamac, in upper Peru, under that of Vira- 
cocha at Cuzco ; the sun, the moon, and the stars were but 
the symbols under which he manifested himself to men ; 
animals were his creation, and the fruits of the earth a gift 
of his bounty. Molina has preserved some very beautiful 
prayers, addressed to this particular god and creator ; they 
bear witness to the most elevated sentiments in their authors. 3 
But their authenticity does not seem sufficiently proved ; 
the attributes ascribed to this god are inconsistent with the 
general state of culture in Peru at that period, and it is 
probable that, if the idea of one supreme God did exist 
amongst a few enlightened spirits, the masses identified with 
this god himself, the symbols which, to the more enlightened, 
represented his attributes. 

The Peruvians offered flowers, incense, animals, such as 
tapirs and serpents to their gods. At the grand festival of 
the Raymi or sacred fire, a llama was sacrificed. On certain 
solemn occasions, such as a victory or the accession of an 
Inca, for instance, a child or a virgin, chosen for her beauty, 4 

1 There exists, however, a temple erected in honor of this supreme god, by 
the Inca Viracocha, to whom he had appeared to command him, on the refusal 
of his father, Yahuar-Huacac, to march against enemies who had dared to in- 
vade the lands of the sun, promising him a decisive victory. Garcilasso has 
preserved for us a description of this temple, which was destroyed by the 
Spanish. 

2 " Relacion Anonym, de las Costumbres Antiguas de los Naturales de 
Peru." 

3 " Saggio della Storia del Chili." Markham : " Narratives of the Rites and 
Laws of the Incas," published for the Hakluyt Society, London, 1873. 

4 Garcilasso (" Com. Real,," part I., book II., ch. IX.) asserts that human 
sacrifices had been completely abolished by the Incas, but the contrary is as- 
serted by the Spanish chroniclers, Sarmiento, Montesinos, Balboa, Cieca de 



438 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



was slain before the image of the sun ; but these sacrifices 
were rare, and they were never followed by the revolting 
feasts which invariably accompanied human sacrifices 
amongst the Mexicans. 

It is pretended that confession existed amongst the Peru- 
vians, and several Spanish historians 1 agree in asserting this. 
No one had the special privilege of hearing it ; it could be 
made to all, to men or to women ; and the confessor had the 
right of imposing a penance, according to the gravity of the 
faults confessed. A certain importance has been assigned to 
these practices, by connecting them with the dogmas of 
Christianity. We think, however, that this is merely an in- 
teresting coincidence, if true. 

The despotic authority of the Incas was the basis of gov- 
ernment ; that authority was founded on the religious re- 
spect yielded to the descendant of the sun, and supported 
by a skilfully combined hierarchy. 2 The population was di- 
vided into decuries, and amongst the ten individuals who 
formed each decury, the Inca or his representatives chose 
one, who became the chief over the nine others. Five decu- 
ries had at their head a decurion of superior rank ; fifty 
decuries a chief, who thus commanded five hundred men. 
Lastly, one hundred decuries obeyed a supreme chief, who 
received orders direct from the Inca. 

Besides this organization, which shared the combined in- 
conveniences of democracy and despotism, were the Curacas, 
or governors of provinces, Some belonged to the family 
of the Incas ; others were descended from the ancient chiefs 

Leon, Ondegardo, and Acosta. Their unanimity justifies us in supposing that 
Garcilasso, as a descendant of the Incas, was carried away in his account by his 
natural veneration for his ancestors. 

1 ' ' Este vilahoma eligia senalaba confesores, paraque asi en el Cuzco como 
en todas las demas provincias y pueblos confesasen secretamente a todas las 
personas, hombres y mujeres, oyendo sus pecados y dando las penitencias per 
ellos." The anonymous author of the account from which we borrow these de- 
tails adds that the confessors of the virgins of the sun were obliged to be eu- 
nuchs. See Herrera : "Hist. Gen.," dec. V., book IV., chap. IV. Acosta, 
/. c. , ch. XXV. 

2 Desjardins, /. c, p. 117. 



PERU. 



439 



of conquered countries. Their dignity appears to have 
been hereditary ; it passed to the eldest of the sons, or, in 
default of children, to the eldest of the brothers. Little is 
known as to the exact position of the Curacas. In certain 
cases they were elected by the people, but the election was 
subject to the approval of the Inca, who could also revoke 
it. 

Penal laws were severe, 1 and were enforced by the sole 
authority of the Inca. Those guilty of homicide or adultery, 
those who had dared to blaspheme the sun, or the Inca, his 
representative, were punished with death. The decurion 
who did not denounce the crimes committed in his decury 
was liable to the same punishment as the guilty. The 
sodomite was flayed, the incestuous hung. Marriage was per- 
mitted between relations outside of the second degree. As 
with the vestals of Rome, the virgins of the sun who broke 
their vows were buried alive ; their house was razed to the 
ground, and the village or town inhabited by their family 
shared the same fate. More venial faults were punished 
with the whip or imprisonment. In other cases the guilty 
was compelled to carry a heavy stone for a certain time. 

Marriage was obligatory ; a man could only have one 
w T ife ; but the Curacas had a dispensation from this rule ; 
as for the Inca, the number of his wives or his concubines 
was unlimited. He chose them from among the daughters 
of his race, even amongst his sisters, and among those vir- 
gins of the sun who attracted him by their beauty. His 
choice was limited neither by blood-relationship nor religious 
respect. When he was tired of one of his temporary partners, 
the honor of having shared the royal bed followed her in 
her retreat and she was the object of the respect of all. 

On a certain day of each year, the young men of twenty- 
four years and the girls of eighteen were united in the 
public square. The representatives of the Inca joined the 

1 " EI castigo era riguroso que por la mayor parte era de muerte por liviano 
que fuese el delito." Garcilasso : " Com. Reales," part I., book II., ch. XII. 
Ch. F. de Santillan and the anonymous account. 



440 



PRE- HIS TOPIC A ME RICA . 



hands of each couple, and proclaimed their union before the 
people. Such was the only form of marriage ; it does not 
appear that the inclination of the wedded pair was consulted, 
and generally every one married in his own family. The 
decury, which none could leave without the express permis- 
sion of the Inca, was bound to have a home built for each 
new household, and to assign to it land enough for its sup- 
port. On the birth of each child, the allowance made was 
increased by one fanega for a boy, and a half -fanega for a 
girl, the exact value of which is unknoAvn. We only know 
that a fanega was equal to the area which could be sown 
with one hundred pounds of maize. 

This division of the land was modified by an annual re- 
vision, and a new partition took place according to the num- 
ber of the members of each family. This was, as will be 
seen, a regular agrarian law. Private property, such as we 
understand it, does not appear to have existed. 1 The Peru- 
vian was simply the farmer for a year of the lot which fate or 
the will of the decurions assigned to him. Besides the lands 
belonging to the community, and divisible amongst all its 
members, there were others, and these not the least impor- 
tant, forming the exclusive property of the Sun or the Inca. 
The inhabitants had to cultivate the lands, even at their own 
expense ; and none but the sick or infirm could evade this 
sacred duty. 

Llamas were the chief domestic animal of Peru. These 
animals which, like their congeners, the camels, can exist 
with the most wretched nourishment and live where other 
mammals would die of hunger, were valuable in these barren 
regions. All belonged to the Inca. He chose the shep- 
herds who took them in immense herds into the mountains ; 
and at the time appointed their wool was carried to the 
magazines built to receive it. A certain quantity of wool 

1 " Rel. primera del Licenciado Polo de Ondegardo." Ondegardo had been 
corregidor of Cuzco about 1 560. Prescott obtained a copy of his reports which 
were addressed to Philip II., and are preserved in the archives of Simancas. 
They have since been partly printed, at the cost of the Hakluyt Society of 
London. 



PERU. 



441 



was distributed to each family, according to the number of 
women contained in it ; and whilst the men were cultivating 
the ground, the former 
spun and wove the neces- 
sary garments. The women 
had also to make a certain 
quantity of cloth which 
was stored away as a re- 
serve for the unforeseen 
needs of the community. 
The dwellings of the Pe- 
ruvians were in harmony 
with the position of their 
inhabitants. Except that 
of the Incas or of the Cur- 
acas, all appear to have 
been built on the same 
model 1 ; the rooms had no 




FlG. 182. — Sepulchral vase from a 
huaca of Peru. 



communication except by outer doors opening upon a cor- 

ridor, which ran along the 
whole length of the build- 
ing, and which may be 
compared with ancient 
cloisters. Some of the roofs 
had a double 2 slope rest- 
ing on lateral walls with 
two gables, on which were 
carried cross-pieces formed 
of cane, which were cov- 
ered with agave leaves, 
maize-straw, and some- 
times even with mats. 

The organization above 
described guaranteed the 
undisputed authority of the 
supreme master. Each in- 




FlG. 183. — Peruvian vase representing a 
man squatting on the ground. 



1 Comte de Sartiges : Rev. des Detix Mondes, 185 1. 
' 2 Wiener, /. c. , p. 503. 



•442 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



dividual formed part of a clan, which he was forbidden to leave. 

He could not ameliorate either his own 
position, or that of those belonging to 
him ; nor could he sink beneath it. 
Hence the motives which most power- 
fully move man, such as patriotism, am- 
bition, the desire of wealth and the spirit 
of invention, were altogether wanting. 
Public spirit could not develop, and this 
is the best explanation of the strange ra- 
pidity with which a few Spanish adven- 
turers reduced to submission a popula- 
tion of several million souls. 

Peruvian pottery was equal in execu- 
Fig. 184.— Peruvian tion to the best made by the other races 
of America. The potter's wheel appears, 
however, to be unknown, and the regularity that the work- 
men obtained without the employment of mechanical means 




FIG. 185. — Piece of Peruvian pottery, representing a llama. 



is astonishing. In the archaeological museum at Madrid 
may be seen a very complete series of vessels from the 
Pacific coast, some intended to be put on the fire and others 
for use at table, or in the different apartments. The forms 




PERU. 



443 



are extremely varied, from the clumsiest vessel, reminding 
us of the lake pottery of Europe, to ewers of excellent work- 
manship, representing men, animals, and a curious series of 
plants, the study of which will enable us to recognize many 
species of the ancient flora of the country. 

This pottery 1 was black, gray, or red, more rarely yellow 
or blue, 2 baked in a kiln, 3 and covered outside with a per- 
meable varnish, probably silico-alkaline. Some have attribu- 
ted this varnish to polishing when cold ; but Demmin has 
proved that it was obtained by means of baking, for he could 
not get it off, either with spirits of wine or volatile oil. 

The vases were moulded 
in two pieces, and joined be- 
fore baking ; so that they 
often show a swelling at the 
joint. The form was often 
ovoid (fig. 176), and a special 
stand was absolutely neces- 
sary to keep them upright. 
The ornamentation has an 
originality of its own ; it is 
less simple and more involved 
than that of the Mexicans. 

Some vases are, however, dec- 

j -i.t- 1 r 4. 1 Fig. 186. — Piece of Peruvian pottery, 

orated with Greek irets, loz- r 3 

enges, chevrons, spirals, or concentric circles (figs. 174, 175, 
182). The Louvre possesses a remarkable piece, of Peruvian 
origin, unfortunately hidden away for many years in the reserve 
collection. 4 Its ornaments bear witness to a singular paral- 
lelism between Greek and American art. The reserve col- 
lections of the Louvre also contain another piece of pottery 

1 Desjardins, /. c, p. 171. Wiener : "Peru and Bolivia," p. 620, et seq. 

2 Demmin : " Guide de 1' amateur de faiences ou de porcelaines." 3d. 
edition, Paris, 1867. Barnard Davis, Anth. Institute of Great Britain, 
April, 1873. 

3 Bollaert (/. c, p. 210) says that the pottery was baked in the sun, and that 
the use of the kiln was unknown. This is an evident error. 

* Demmin, /. c, p. 134. Birch : " Ancient Pottery," vol. II., p. 253. 




444 



PKE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



from the Pacific coast, the design of which reminds us of 
Hercules struggling with a fish, a subject so often reproduced 
by the Etruscans. At the ethnographical museum of St. 
Petersburg we may also see a squatting figure rather more 
than a foot high, of which the disproportionately long ears 
recall the Orejones, whilst the head is surmounted by a 
mural crown resembling that worn by certain antique 




Fig. 187. — A vase found at Chimbote. 



statues. 1 There is indeed not a single Peruvian collection,, 
public or private, 2 which does not contain types curiously re- 

^chobel: " Antiquites Americaines du Muse'e Ethnographique de Saint 
Petersbourg." "Cong, des Americ," Nancy, 1875, vol. II., p. 273. 

2 The Macedo collection, recently acquired by the Prussian Government, con- 
tains numerous types of animals. Many are reproduced in the Nouvelle Revue 
d Ethnographic (1882, No. I), which, under the skilful direction of Dr. Hamy, 
is destined to render real service to science. The Louvre Museum also pos- 



PERU. 



445 



sembling those which have 
wrongly been supposed to 
be exclusively character- 
istic of the Old World. 

Numerous pieces of pot- 
tery represent men (figs. 
183, 184), animals in famil- 
iar attitudes (figs. 185,186); 
a llama, for instance, eat- 
ing an ear of corn. 

The Peabody Museum 
possesses fifty-one pieces 
from 
tion, 

representatives of mon- 
keys, and three human fig- 
ures, from thirteen to sev- 
teen inches in height. Two 
vases found, one at Chim- 



the Agassiz collec- 
among them several 





Fig. 1S9. — A silvador. 



Fig. 188. — Earthenware vase found under 
a huaca near Santa. 



bote (fig. 190), the 
other under a huaca 
near Santa (fig. 188), 
are remarkable. The 
first is the work of 
the Chimus, and 
dates from the time 
of the domination 
of the Incas, for the 
ears are distended 
by an ornament dat- 
ing from the same 
period ; the second 
is a human figure in 
red clay, of a very 
characteristic type. 



sesses, in one of its public rooms, a valuable collection of statuettes of men 
and animals. De Longperier : " Notice des monuments exposee dans la salle 
des Antiquites Americaines," Nos. 658, et seq. 



446 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



The silvador (fig. 189), for such is the name given to a 
piece of pottery preserved in the Trocadero Museum, 
deserves special mention, if only on account of its original- 
ity. It consists of two vases with necks communicating 




Fig. 190. — Piece of painted pottery representing a vicuna hunter. 

with each other. 1 One only of these necks is open, and 
when liquid is poured into it, the compressed air in the other 
escapes with a peculiar whistle ; by a skilful contrivance the 

1 J. Bertillon : Nature, ioth June, 1SS2. Wiener reproduces a certain num- 
ber of silvadors ; they resemble the Etruscan nasiternes , and yet more the 
double jars which are still manufactured in Kabylia. 



PERU. 



447 



sounds are modified so as to imitate the cries of different 
animals, and even the human voice. On the mouth of one 
vase, of which 
we give a 
drawing, is a 
little figure 
fairly well ex- 
ecuted, repre- 



holding a 
to m ahawk, 
the most for- 
midable wea- 
pon of the 
ancient Peru- 
vians. 

Some pieces 
of pottery are 
ornamented 
with subjects 
the execution of which 
is generally very infe- 
rior ; and we even won- 
der if the vicuna hunter 
(fig. 190) is not actually 
a caricature. Some of 
these paintings are cer- 
tainly symbolical, but 
their interpretation is 
purely conjectural ; oth- 
ers are more obscene, 1 and, 
singularly enough, many 
of them have been picked 
up under huacas, mixed jr IGSj IQI an a Ig2 




with human bones. 



Disks intended to be 
used as ear pendants. 



1 ' 4 From the north of Peru I have seen clay figures characterized by a 
prurient indecency," Bollaert, /. c, p. 211. 



PERU. 



449 



Like the Mexicans, the Peruvians made of earthenware 
musical instruments, such as shepherd's pipes or trumpets, 
and ornaments of all kinds, especially heavy disks (figs. 191, 
192), intended to be worn in the ears, and producing by 
their weight the grotesque forms characteristic of the sub- 
jects of the Incas. 

No American people has surpassed the Peruvians in the 
manufacture of woven tissues. The cotton they cultivated 
in the warm and humid valleys, with the wool of llamas, 
alpacas, and vicunas, supplied excellent material. They 
knew the art of 
dyeing, the stuff 
was often woven 
in wool of differ- 
ent colors, and 
by this means 
the most varied 
designs were ob- 
tained in the 
woof (fig. 193). 
The cotton 
cloths, generally 
of great fineness, 
were dyed in dif- 
ferent colors; 
and the workmen 
knew how, by 
combinations of Fig. 194.— Die for cloth printing, 

ornaments or figures, to obtain the most happy results. For 
this purpose they used regular stamps, sometimes of bark, 
sometimes of eathenware (fig. 194) ; they also added feathers 
of brilliant colors, tastily shaded, and the garments of the 
Incas and Curacas, with their undulating colors, excited the 
enthusiasm of the first Spanish chroniclers. Many interesting 
specimens of these Peruvian stuffs maybe seen in the British 
Museum, and were described several years ago by Bollaert. 

In the Louvre and Trocadero museums mav also be seen 




45o 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



fragments remarkable for the variety of the combination and 
the natural taste of the workmen. One is really amazed at 
the results which they obtained, in spite of the obstacles to 
industry presented by their form of government. 

The rich mines of Peru, and especially those of Pasco, so 
celebrated, retain traces of ancient mining operations, the 
epoch of which it is difficult to determine. One thing is 
certain : the artizans who worked the precious metals had 
attained the skill which time alone can give. 

Although a great many objects have disappeared in the 

crucible, there still remain enough 
bracelets, pins, tweezers, and vases, 
with ornaments in relief (fig. 197) 
to prove the talents of their jewel- 
lers. The statuettes are even more 
remarkable ; they include lizards, 
serpents (fig. 196), monkeys, birds 
with their feathers, fish with their 
scales, trees with their leaves ; 
modelled some in relief, others 
in intaglio. The artist did not 
even shrink from attempting to 
represent complete groups. We 
may mention a child lying in a 
hammock, on which a serpent coiled round a tree is about to 
fling itself, and a man seated between two women. The latter, 
which belonged to Squier's collection, weighed forty-nine 
ounces. Unfortunately, it is impossible to give an illustra- 
tion of it. If it is true, as has been claimed, that the Peru- 
vians were ignorant of the art of casting metals, the only 
process known for the production of such complicated pieces 
was an amalgamation of gold with mercury, which latter 
metal is very common in the country, and known to the 
Indians of the present day. The paste made by a mixture 
of the two is very plastic, and lends itself easily to model- 
ling ; when the artist had finished his work, he volatilized 
the mercury, by exposing it to a fierce heat ; the gold alone 




Fig. 



195. — Silver vase discov 
ered at Chimu. 



PERU. 



451 



was left, and simple polishing was enough to obtain the de- 
sired result. Cieca de Leon 1 relates that the working of 
metals was a speciality of the men of Chimu, and adds that 
after the submission of the country the Inca Yupanqui car- 
ried off to Cuzco the best workmen of the town. 

We must also refer to several little round pieces of gold, 
silver, or copper, pierced with a hole, and bearing on one 
side a rough impression either of a man or an animal. Were 
those used as money ? There is nothing to justify us 
in supposing that these men had invented a system of ex- 
change, unless for their simple wants ; and it is more 
probable that these were ornaments resembling those of 




Fig. 196. — Silver serpent. 



gold, silver, earthenware, stone, and glass found under 
the huacas (fig. 197). 

Iron appears to have been unknown to the Peruvians as to 
the other inhabitants of America. It was replaced by bronze, 
or copper, and a considerable number of weapons, tools, im- 
plements, and ornaments, made of one or other of these metals, 
have been picked up. The copper was mixed with from five 
to ten per cent, of silver. 2 This may have been an alloy, or 
more probably a natural product of the mine. Some writers 
have pretended that the Peruvians were acquainted with 

1 Cieca de Leon, one of the companions of Pizarro, remained for seventeen 
years in Peru. His history " Primera parte de la chronica del Peru," was 
printed at Seville in 1553 and at Antwerp in 1554. 

2 We have mentioned this same fact with regard to the copper extracted 
by the Mound Builders from the mines of Lake Superior. 



452 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



a mode of hardening which added to the power of resist- 
ance of copper. None of the objects thus far discovered 
' justify this assertion. At the Madrid exhibition was to 
be seen a bronze statuette rather more than six inches hierh, 
representing a man with his legs crossed, seated on a 
tortoise, and his arms resting on a tablet, on which is traced 
an inscription. This statuette was taken from a huaca 
at the foot of the Andes. 




Fig. 197. — Beads of gold, silver, earthenware, stone, and glass. 



The spade and chisel used by the ancient Peruvians were 
of the form still retained in the country. The celts re- 
sembled the stone ones of Europe ; the knives, those still in 
use amongst French saddlers. Sometimes the tools were 
more clumsy ; Darwin speaks of having seen rough stones, 
pierced with a hole to receive a handle, used by the in- 
habitants of Chili to till, or rather to scratch, the ground. 

The weapons found are generally of the most wretched 



PERU. 



453 



description, and include lance-points, 1 javelins, arrows, 
and bronze tomahawks. Near the mines of Pasco especially 
have been picked up hatchets and arrow-points of flint, 
obsidian, diorite, and basalt, and stone mortars resembling 
those of California. 

The Trocadero museum contains several stone batons, 
which have been supposed to be insignia of rank, 2 presenting 
a curious relationship with those objects, alleged to be 
of that character, of neolithic times in Europe. It is prob- 
able, however, that none of these objects had any such pur- 
pose. The idea of " rank " can hardly have developed 
among neolithic men any more than among the present 
Eskimo. Objects obtained from the Eskimo of Nunivak 
Island by Dall, in 1874, exactly resemble some of the 
so-called batons of neolithic man, and were handles for skin 
scrapers, or snuff pestles. We give a drawing of a rod (fig. 
198) of interesting workmanship, 3 with seven birds sculptured 
along it, that appear to be climbing toward the top, which is 
crowned by two birds said to be pelicans. We may also 
mention, as a specimen of wood-work, a seat upheld by two 
pumas, found at Cuzco (fig. 199), and some four-legged 
stools cut in a single piece of wood. These stools figured at 
the Madrid exhibition ; they resemble in shape the seats 
represented in Mexican pictographs. Wood was also used 
to make many objects in daily use. For instance, several 
examples of tastefully carved combs (fig. 200) are known. 
Such combs were nearly always placed' in the huacas, near 
the dead. 

To conclude our summary of all relating to the Peruvians, 
we must describe the Pintados ; such is the name given to 
the engravings and sculptures met with upon the granite rocks 
of the chain of the Andes. 4 These represent men, some of 

1 Squier has in his collection a lance-point twenty inches long. 

2 It is remarkable that the insignia of rank have invariably developed from an 
ordinary stick or club. Such was the origin of the sceptre of the kings, 
the crozier of the bishop, and the baton of the marshal of France. 

3 Nature, 10th June, 1882. 

4 Bollaert, /. c, p. 157. " Trans. Ethn. Soc. of London," 1857. 



454 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 





Fig. 199. — Seat of maguey wood found at Cuzco. 

feet square near Macaya, known by the name of la Piedra 
del Leon, is loaded with very ancient sculptures. The most 



PERU. 



455 



important group represents a struggle between a man and a 
puma. 1 On another rock it is easy to make out a puma. 
Near the little town of Nepen, a colossal serpent is to be 
seen ; at Caldera, a short distance from Arequipa, trees and 
flowers. At the Pintados de las Rayas, near Noria, it is no 
longer animate objects, but geometrical figures, such as cir- 
cles or parallelograms, that are met with. In the province of 
Tarapaca, considerable surfaces are covered, not only with 
figures of men and animals, most of them of remarkable exe- 
cution (fig. 201), but also 
with characters, which ap- 
pear to be written vertical- 
ly. The lines are from 
twelve to eighteen feet 
high, and each character 
is several inches in depth. 
Near Huara half-effaced 
inscriptions are reported, 
and between Mendoza and 
La Punta, Chili, is a large 
pillar, on which are marks 
supposed to be letters. 
Their indefinite character 
may be judged from the 
fact that they have been 
said to present some resem- 
blance with Chinese char- 
acters. 2 Every thing relating to these so-called inscriptions is 
very vague, very uncertain, and does not justify any conclu- 
sion. 

I am disposed to attach more importance to the discov- 
eries of Professor Liberani, in the Santa Maria valley, 
Province of Catamarca, in the Argentine Republic. 3 He de- 
scribes figures of animate objects accompanied by reproduc- 
tions of inanimate objects, geometrical figures, and lines of 

1 Bollaert, /. c, p. 102. 

2 Bollaert, /. c, p. 218. 

3 Ameghino : " La Antiguaded del Hombre," vol. I., p. 94. 




I III 

Fig. 200. — Peruvian comb. 



456 



PRE-HIS TORIC A M ERICA . 



dots differently combined. The same signs are met with, 
and this is a fact worthy of attention, constantly repeated 
and always in a similar order. Ameghino considers these 
inscriptions to indicate a complete system of writing, made 
up partly of figures and symbolical characters, partly of 
purely phonetic characters ; and he is even disposed to ad- 
mit that these are the remains of ancient Peruvian writing, 
which has been perpetuated far from the district where it 
first came into existence. According to Montesinos, 2 this 
writing was proscribed by Pachacuti III., one of the fabulous 
predecessors of the historic Incas ; he even had an amauta 
burned for having dared to infringe his orders. 2 




Fig. 201. — Peruvian pictograph. Province of Tarapaca. 



It is certain, that in the sixteenth century the Peruvians 
were acquainted with no system of writing, either hiero- 
glyphic or phonetic, and with no mode of numeration. It is in 
the highest degree incredible that a system of writing should 
have been so utterly lost if it had ever existed. For the 

1 "Mem. hist, sur l'ancien Perou," coll. Ternaux-Compans, Paris, 1849. 

2 " Uno de los reyes del Peru prohibio en efecto su uso bajo las penas mas 
severas, y uno de sus subditos que algunos anos mas tarde se propuso inventar 
un nuevo sistema de escritura fu quemado vivo." Ameghino, /, c.j con- 
sult the same author's " Inscripciones ante cblombianas encontradas en la Re- 
publica Argentina," 8°. Brussels, 1880. 



PERU. 



457 



ordinary purposes of life they used quipos (fig. 202), or strings 
of varying length, on which were knotted a certain number 
of threads. The color of the threads and the number and 
distance from each other of the knots had a significance 
sometimes historic and sometimes mathematical. 1 Gar- 
cilasso tell us that the quipos, which related to the history 
of the Incas, were carefully preserved by an officer called 
Quipo Camay ol, literally the guardian of the quipos. The 
greater number were destroyed as monuments of idolatry 




Fig. 202. — Fragment of a quipo. 

by some fanatical friars, but their loss is not important to 
history, as neither tradition nor study enable us to interpret 
those still remaining. The Indians, however, long preserved, 
and perhaps still retain, this system of secret correspondence. 



'Before the accession of the Emperor Fo-Fli (3,300 B. C), it is said that the 
Chinese were not acquainted with writing and also used quipos. In the 
writings of Confucius we find a passage which bears on this point. " The men 
of antiquity," he says, " used knotted cords to convey their orders ; those who 
succeeded them substituted signs or figures for these cords." Jaffray : Nature, 
1876, vol. II., p. 405. 



458 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



A great revolt against the Spaniards was organized in 1792. 
As was found out later the revolt had been organized by 
means of messengers, carrying a piece of wood in which 
were enclosed threads, the ends of which formed red, black, 
blue, or white fringes. The black thread had four knots, 
which signified that, the messenger had started from Val- 
dura, the residence of the chief of the conspiracy, four days 
after full moon. The white thread had ten knots, which 
signified that the revolt would break out ten days after the 
arrival of the messenger. The person to whom the keeper 
was sent had in his turn to make a knot in the red thread 
if he agreed to join the confederates; in the red and blue 
threads, on the contrary, if he refused. It was by means of 
these quipos that the Incas transmitted their instructions; 
on all the roads starting from the capital, at distances rarely 
exceeding five miles, rose tambos, or stations for the chasquis 
or couriers who went from one post to another. The orders 
of the Inca thus became disseminated with great rapidity; 
those which emanated directly from him were marked with 
a red thread of the royal llantu, and nothing, as historians 
assure us, could equal the respect with which these messages 
were received. 1 

This very imperfect mode of communication presented 
many other drawbacks, when the preservation of historic 
facts and their transmission to posterity was in question. 
From this point of view, it was certainly very inferior to the 
pictographs of the Mexicans, to the hieroglyphic system em- 
ployed in Yucatan and Chiapas, and even to the clumsy 
representations of the North Americans; it offers a strange 
contrast with the progress in many directions characterizing 
the Peruvians. 

We cannot conclude our account of Peru without again 
laying stress on the admiration with which the historian and 
philosopher are inspired in studying an organization so 
strange and a culture so advanced as that of the population 
who braved the severe climate of the Andes and the burning 



1 Prescott : " History of the Conquest of Peru," p. 29. 



PBR U. 



459 



sun of the Pacific coast. We shall recur again to the origin 
of this civilization, but, before touching that question, we 
must complete our work by studying the other peoples of 
South America. 

On the lofty table-lands which form the chain of the 
Andes, in N. Lat. 4 0 , at an elevation of nearly ten thousand 
feet, lived the Chibchas. 1 This was a strong and courageous, 
agricultural and industrious race, individual in character, and 
possessing an original culture. Isolated in the narrow area 
which formed their country, they knew how to maintain 
their independence against their more powerful native 
neighbors, who resembled them in manners, customs, arts, 
and worship. After the Spanish conquest, however, the Chib- 
cha country, which consisted only of a territory forty-five 
leagues long by twelve to fifteen wide, became the province 
of Cundinamarca, and was included in the viceroyalty of 
New Grenada. Since 1861, the state of Cundinamarca has 
formed part of the confederation which has taken the name 
of the United States of Colombia. 

Less advanced perhaps, than the Aztecs or the Peruvians, 
the Chibchas were yet able to lay out and pave roads, to 
span their water-courses with bridges, to build temples 
with columns to their gods, to carve statues, to engrave 
figures on stone, to weave and dye cotton and wool, to adorn 
their woven tissues with varied patterns, and to work in 
wood, stone, and the metals. Their pottery resembled that 
of other people of America ; their vessels are generally 
formed of three super-posed layers ; the central layer is 
black, whilst the internal and external ones are of finer 
earth and lighter color. The ornaments of the Chibchas 

1 Piedrahita : "Hist. gen. de la conquista del Nuevo Reyno de Granada," 
Madrid, 1688. Humboldt : ' ' Voyage aux regions equinoctiales," etc., and " Vues 
des Cordilleres." J. Acosta : " Compendio hist, del descubrimiento y colonisa- 
cion de la Nueva Granada," Paris, 1848. Bollaert : "Ant. Ethn. and other 
Researches in New Granada," London, i860. Uricochcea : " Mem. sobre las 
antiguedad^s Neo-Granadinas," Berlin, n. d. Nature, 1877, vol. I., p. 359. 
" Isographia fisica y politica de los Estados Unidos de Colombia," Bogota, 2 
vols., 1862-3. Dr. Jaffray : "Voyage a la Nouvelle Grenade," "La Tour 
du Monde," vol. XXIV., XXV., XXVI. 



460 



PRE-HTSTORIC AMERICA. 



were collars made of shells which came from the coasts 
of the Pacific, more than two hundred leagues off ; gold, 
stone, and silver pendants, pearls, and emeralds. Their 
wealth was considerable, and chroniclers relate, that in the 
first few months succeeding the conquest the conquistadores 
collected spoil of which the value exceeded thirty million 
francs. 1 If these figures are not exaggerated they are really 
enormous for the time and country. 

We know very little about this people, who are looked 
upon as one of the authors of the ancient civilization of 
South America. Their very language has disappeared, 2 and 
the name by which we know them dates from the time 
of the Spaniards, 3 who borrowed it from Chibchachimi, one 
of the chief gods of the country, the protector of agricultur- 
alists and goldsmiths. The traditions relating to the 
Chibchas are of little importance. According to Chibcha 
legend the moon was the wife of Bochica, who personified 
the sun ; she did as much harm to men as he did good, 
and Bochica, irritated against her, condemned her to give 
light to the earth only during the night. 4 They called them- 
selves aborigines, born before the moon was created, on the 
tableland where Santa Fe de Bogota now rises. They wan- 
dered about naked, without laws and without culture, until 
a stranger, Bochica, came from distant regions and taught 
them the art of clothing themselves, building houses, and liv- 
ing in society. The legends relating to Bochica present a 
curious analogy with those about Quetzacoatl or Manco- 
Capac, and, by one of those coincidences of which ethnology 
affords so many examples, the mythical civilizer of Colom- 
bia had something in common alike with the reformer of 
Buddhism and the first Inca of Peru. 

^costa, /. c, pp. 123 and 126. 

2 In 1871 Uricochoea published a Chibcha grammar. This language, he tells 
us, can only be studied now through two others, which are. probably only 
dialects of it, that of the Turievos, a people who lived north of Bogota, and 
that of the Itocos, who lived near the celebrated emerald mines of Muzo. 

3 The. Chibchas are supposed to have called themselves Muyscas, a word 
signifying men in their language. 

4 Desjardins : " Le Pe'rou avant la conquete Espagnole," pp. 44 and 102. 



PERU. 



Besides their own particular gods, such as Chibchachimi or 
Nehmquitiba, the Chibchas also adored the sun and the 
moon ; they offered human victims to the sun, but only on 
rare occasions. One of these occasions was the commence- 
ment of each cycle of fifteen years, which formed the basis 
of their astronomical calculations ; and with a cruelty but 
little in accordance with their habitual manners, the victim 
was often chosen several years beforehand, and prepared 
by a long initiation for the death which awaited him. The 
lofty summits of the mountains, the water-courses, and 
the lakes were dedicated to their divinities. Among the 
lakes, that of Quatavita was the most venerated, and it is 
related that at the time of the conquest the inhabitants 
flung into its waters all their treasures that they might 
not become the prey of the conqueror, the report of whose 
avarice had already reached the Chibchas. This legend, 
which does not agree at all with the account of the immense 
sums drawn by the Spanish from New Grenada, has shown 
great vitality. At various times the Japadas have en- 
endeavored to recover these riches but the results have 
by no means corresponded with the hopes of the explorers ; 
in 1562, one alligator, two monkeys, and thirteen frogs 
of gold were taken from the water ; but more recent 
attempts have yielded but a few statuettes of no value. 

Not far from Tunja, in the state of Boyaca, thirteen col- 
umns, four or five yards high, still stand ; a little farther off, 
.near some extensive ruins, rise nineteen shorter columns 1 ; 
numerous carved stones covered with ornaments are scat- 
tered all over the coast for a distance of more than two 
miles. It is supposed that this was the town of Sogomuxi, 
and the temple, of which the columns are relics, would be 
that of Nehmquitiba, which was destroyed by Quesada. 

Although belonging to one race, the Chibchas do not 
appear to have formed a national body. Some obeyed a 

1 " Bull. Soc. Geog.," 1847. Travellers differ as to the number of columns still 
standing. See J affray : " Viaje a nueva Granada." Ameghino : "La An- 
tiguedad del Hombre," vol. I., p. 103. 



462 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



chief called Zippa, who commanded at Bogota ; the chief 
of the other faction bore the title of Zoque, and lived at 
Hunsa, the Tunja of to-day. The authority of these chiefs 
was as despotic as that of the Incas, and no one dared to 
oppose their will. The Zippa could only have one legiti- 
mate wife, but was allowed any number of concubines 
{Thiguyes). None of his sons inherited the paternal power; 
but, in accordance with a custom which still prevails in the 
heart of Africa, it was transmitted to the eldest son of the 
sister. 

As soon as the Zippa was dead, his viscera were taken out 
and replaced by sweet-smelling resin ; the body was then 
placed in a coffin of palm-wood, ornamented inside and out 
with sheets of gold. This coffin was placed in a sepulchre, 
the situation of which was secret ; and this secret has been 
so well kept that to this day the tombs, so eagerly sought 
after, have never been discovered. Such is the account, 
bearing the impress of their habitual exaggeration, which 
we borrow from the Spanish writers. It is probable that the 
cave situated not far from Bogota, and which has yielded 
such an ample harvest of jewels of gold and silver, or per- 
haps that near Tunja, where rows of mummies clothed in 
rich garments were to be seen, was really the spot dedi- 
cated to the burial of the Zippas and the Zoques. With the 
chiefs were interred their weapons, their garments, the insig- 
nia of their rank, and even those of their favorite concubines. 
In all the tombs, without exception, we find the objects that 
had been used in daily life, the professional implements, and 
jars filled with chicha. For these men, as for the greater 
number of the native people of America, the life which 
began after death was to be a continuation of that lived 
upon earth. 

The laws of the Chibchas were no less severe than those 
of the Aztecs or the Peruvians. Violation and homicide 
were punished with death ; the thief incurred the penalty of 
the whip. Sometimes the penalties inflicted were more 
original ; he who showed cowardice in war was dressed like 



PERU. 



463 



a woman, and made to do female work. The woman ac- 
cused of adultery had to swallow a certain quantity of red 
pepper; if she confessed her fault, she was pitilessly put to 
death ; but if she could stand the ordeal, her husband had 
to make public apologies to her. 

These men had no cattle of any kind ; they do not appear 
even to have known how to make use of llamas. Their food 
consisted of honey, which was very abundant on the slopes 
of the mountains, maize, and potatoes, which they obtained 
by cultivating the earth with wooden implements, and 
watering it frequently by means of irrigating canals. Their 
houses rose in the midst of circular enclosures (cercadas) 
often defended by watch-towers. They were built of wood 
and clay moistened with water ; the roof was conical, and 
covered with reed mats. The openings were closed with 
interlaced rushes. 

Primitive as their buildings and their mode of life appear, 
the Chibchas were acquainted with bronze, copper, tin, lead, 
gold, and silver, but not with iron. They were very skilful 
in the use of the metals just enumerated, and their chief oc- 
cupation was the fabrication of gold and silver objects. In 
the Saint Germain Museum may be seen interesting speci- 
mens of Chibcha art (fig. 203). M. Uriccechea has a still 
more remarkable collection, amongst the contents of which 
we must mention two golden masks of the human face, 
larger than life, and hundreds of little statuettes repre- 
senting men, monkeys, and frogs. The last-named are 
numerous throughout New Granada, from which we may 
gather that the veneration of the Muyscas for water-courses 
extended to the batrachians peopling them. 

The Chibchas appear to have carried on an extensive trade 
in the various objects they manufactured ; they also ex- 
ported to their neighbors the rock salt which abounded in 
their territories, and in return they received the cereals 
which the poverty of their soil rendered indispensable to 
them. They are said to have invented a coinage to facili- 
tate these exchanges, and that it was for this purpose that 



4 6 4 



P RE-HI S TOPIC A M ERICA . 



were made certain peculiar little gold discs ; it is more prob- 
able that these were ornaments, for nothing that we know of 
the social state of the people of South America justifies us 
in supposing that they understood the use of money. 






Fig. 203. — Chibcha weapons and jewels. (Saint Germain Museum.) 

Monuments, except the columns already mentioned, are 
rare in the Chibcha country, and we can enumerate them 
rapidly. A stone is mentioned, probably intended for sac- 
rifices, and upheld by caryatides ; a sculptured jaguar at the 



PER U. 



465 



-entrance to a cave near Neyba, and further on some gigantic 
llamas. Humboldt mentions, at the entrance to the Muysca 
country, between 2° and 4 0 N. Lat., granite or syenite rocks, 
covered with colossal figures of crocodiles and tigers. 
They look as if they were intended to defend the representa- 
tions of the sun and moon accompanying them. Ameghino 
also speaks 1 of hieroglyphics in New Granada, and perhaps 
we must also attribute to the Chibchas two columns of great 
height, covered with sculpture, situated at the junction of 
the Carare and Magdalena. They are the object of the su- 
perstitious veneration of the natives. 2 

Every day, so to speak, brings new facts which add to our 
knowledge. We must not omit to mention the curious 
pictographs recently discovered in the valleys of Bogota, 
Tunga, and Cauca, which appear to be a roughly outlined 
map of the country, in which, however, the nearest pueblos 
can be made out. 3 

At every turn South America presents vestiges of a van- 
ished race, of a culture now lost ; and we are always com- 
pelled to one conclusion as to our absolute powerlessness to 
decide on the origin or cause of the decadence of these 
races, now represented by a few miserable savages, without 
a past, as without a future. 

In no region of the globe has nature been more prodigal 
than in the vast districts stretching from Guiana to Uruguay, 
from the Atlantic to the foremost spurs of the Andes, form- 
ing the empire of Brazil. The fertility of the soil, under the 
double influence of heat and moisture, is wonderful ; forest 
trees grow in great variety everywhere ; valuable medical 
plants spring up in profusion which are not to be met 
with in any other climate ; and vegetables, good for food, or 
fruits pleasant to the palate of man, with flowers of the most 
brilliant colors. Fifteen thousand vegetable species peculiar 
to Brazil have already been recognized. Agassiz, telling of 

1 " En Nueva Granado las inscripciones geroglificas se encuentran a cado 
paso." " La Ant. del Hombre," vol. I., p. 92. 

2 Zamora : " Hist, de la Prov. del Nuevo Reino de Granada." 

3 Bastian : " Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft fur Erdkunde," Berlin, 1878. 



466 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



his memorable expedition to the Amazon, in 1865 and 1866,. 
adds: " An empire might esteem itself rich in anyone of 
the sources of industry which abound in this valley, and yet 
the greater part of it rots on the ground, and goes to form a 
little more river-mud, or tinges the water on the shores 
of which these manifold products die and decompose." 1 
The fauna is no less rich than the flora ; virgin forests,, 
the magnificence of which, according to travellers, baffles 
description, are filled with monkeys and feline animals, 
tapirs, peccaries, and birds of brilliant plumage. The 
abundance of fish in the streams and rivers is no less re- 
markable ; in fact, the Brazilian ichthyology is so rich 
that, in his exploration of the Amazon, Agassiz was able 
to class three hundred new species. The pirarucu {Sudis 
gigas), which the natives take with the lance when it 
comes to the surface of the water, and the sea-turtle 
alone, would suffice for the nourishment of a large fish- 
eating population. 2 

The barbarism of man presents a strange contrast with 
the riches of nature. Whilst powerful and industrious peo- 
ple, with regular government, laws, and towns, flourished 
upon the sandy coasts of the Pacific and on the lofty table- 
lands of the Andes, at heights where cold and hunger were- 
formidable enemies, the Portuguese found in the fertile dis- 

1 "A Journey in Brazil," Boston, 1868, p. 510. 

2 Prince Max de Neuwied : " Reise nach Bresilien," 3 vol., 4 0 , Frankfurt- 
am-Main, 1820. A. de St. Hilaire : "Voyage dans les provinces de Rio de 
Janeiro et de Minas Geraes." F. Denis : " Le Bresil, Univers Pittoresque," 
Paris, 1837. F. de Castelnau : " Exp. dans les parties centrales de lAmerique 
du Sud, de 1843 et 1847," 6 vol., 8°, A. de Varnhagen : " Hist. Geral do 
Brazil," Madrid and Rio de Janeiro, 1855-7. Dr. T. Waitz : " Anthropologic 
der Naturvolker," vol. III., Leipzig, 1862. C. de Martius : " Beitrage zur 
Ethnographie und Sprachenkunde Amerikas zumal Brasiliens," Leipzig, 1867- 
72. Marcoy (St. Cricq) : "Voyage a travers l'Amerique du Sud, de l'Ocean 
Pacifique a l'Ocean Atlantique," Paris, 1868. R. Burton: "Highlands of 
Brazil," London, 1868. Hartt : "Geology and Physical Geography of 
Brazil," Boston, 1870. Pompeu de Souza : " Compendio de Geographia geral 
e especial do Brazil." Lacerda and Peixotto : " Contribugoes arao pestudo 
anthropologico das Racas indigenas do Brazil. " " Archivos do Museo Nacional, " 
Rio de Janeiro. 



PERU. 



467 



tricts of Brazil but a scattered population, steeped in the 
saddest degradation, 1 and where cannibalism has continued 
to exist to our own day. 2 

This native population belonged to the race called 
Guarani by the Spaniards and Tupi by the Portuguese. This 
was the most prolific race in South America. 3 We meet 
with it in the Antilles, in Uruguay, in Guiana, and as far as 
Bolivia. The skin of the Guaranis was a shade less dark 
than that of the Aymaras or the Qquichuas ; they were of 
more robust and vigorous constitution ; but, on the other 
hand, their character was more violent, and their intelligence 
was less marked, and above all, less susceptible of progress. 

Dr. Crevaux, of whose murder by the Tobas we have 
just heard, and whose death is a great loss to science, noted 
important analogies between the languages of Guiana, the 
Upper Amazon, the Antilles, and that of the ancient inhabi- 
tants of the bay of Rio de Janeiro. This is a weighty fact 
in support of the opinion that a single race peopled all the 
Atlantic coasts of America. 4 But this race has been pro- 

1 Varnhagen estimated the number of natives at the time of the Portuguese 
conquest at about a million. The different tribes which have remained in a 
savage state may now amount up altogether to five hundred thousand souls. 
The rest are merged in the population of the country. There are the Capufos, 
children of negro and Indian women ; the Mamelucos, or Curibocos, children 
of white men and Indian women ; and the Mulattos t of white and black paren- 
tage. The subdivisions, as the generation succeed each other, are infinite. 

2 We have already said that all, men, women, and children, wandered about 
in a state of complete nudity ; in some tribes, however, we find earthenware 
" fig-leaves," or iangas, used for covering the sexual parts. These tangas are 
of very fine clay, baked in the fire. The concave side retains its natural color, 
but the convex is enamelled with white clay, and on some of them a face is 
represented. Hartt, " Archives of the National Museum of Rio de Janeiro," 
vol. I. 

3 The Galibis, who are met with in French Guiana, sprung from a source 
probably allied to the Tupis, and which, according to Martius, gave birth, by a 
cross with the original people of the Antilles, to the redoubtable race of the 
Caribs. D'Orbigny : " L' Homme Americain," vol. II., p. 268. M. Girard 
de Rialle has made the Galibis very well known by his account of several 
natives of the country who were to be seen in the Jardin d' Acclimatation. 
{Nature, Aug. 19, 1882). 

4 " Bull. Soc. Anth.," 1881, p. 564. 



468 



P RE-HI S TOPIC A ME PIC A . 



foundly modified by prior or later intermixtures. Some 
people present a very marked Asiatic type ; their figure is 
squat and thick-set ; their faces are flat, the nose is low, the 
cheek-bones are prominent ; the eyes are of oblique shape, 
the skin is yellow, the beard thin, and the hair black, long 
and smooth. We meet with these same characteristics at 
the present day amongst the Aimores, 1 to whom the Portu- 
guese have given the name of Botocudos,' on account of the 
large round piece of wood ibotoque) or labret which they 
are in the habit of introducing into an artificial aperture in 
the lower lip (fig. 204.) 



found in the caves of the province of Minas-Geraes ? We 
are justified in doubting it, and although the type of the 
men of Lagoa-Santa was still met with at the time of the 

lifers, Eschwege, "Journal v. Bresilien," vol. II., p. 194. According to 
Lacerda and Peixotto ("Arch, of the Nat. Mus. of Rio de Janeiro," vol. I.) it 
would be the Botocudcs that are most nearly allied to the primitive race 
of Brazil. 

2 Rey describes the skull of the Botocudos as characterized by the promi- 
nence of the glabella and of the supraciliary ridges, by the depression of the 
root of the nose, the absence of frontal eminences, the simplicity of the sutures, 
the spherical form of the occipital, and by the cymbicephalic shape of the cra- 
nial cavity. The cephalic index varies between 71.67, and 74.86. Bordier, 
"Bull. Soc. Anth.," 1881, p. 566. 




Fig. 204. — Botocudo. 



These people were broken up 
into innumerable tribes, who, 
notwithstanding their common 
origin, were constantly at war 
with each other. Side by side 
with the Tupis, the Portuguese 
found the Tapuyas and the 
Tupinambas, who occupied the 
whole coast, from the island of 
St. Vincent to that of Maranhao, 
with others, the enumeration of 
whom would be of no interest. 
Were these the most ancient 
people of Brazil ? Those, for 
instance, whose bones have been 



PERU. 



469 



European invasion, 1 Quatrefages believes that the barbarous 
Guaranis had either as predecessors or contemporaries a 
more civilized race. If we admit this latter hypothesis, it 
would be to this unknown race that we must attribute the 
few megaliths, and the rock-paintings and engravings so fre- 
quently met with in Brazil. 

Herkman, sent into the interior of the province of Per- 
nambuco by the prince of Nassau-Siegen, during the Dutch 
domination, mentioned two perfectly round stones, the 
larger six feet in diameter, placed one upon the other. 2 This 
is one of those structures which characterize the infancy of 
culture in all societies. It has been taken for an altar, on 
account of the accumulation of stones about it, which, in 
accordance with an almost universal custom, bear witness to 
the veneration of the natives. In several places in the inte- 
rior of the country explorers have met with tumuli, some- 
times of stones, sometimes of earth. In all, excavations 
have yielded bones, and with the bones weapons, ornaments 
of chert or hard rock, crystals, pieces of coral and jutah 3 root. 

The solitudes of Para and Piauhy contain intaglio 
sculptures, the work of vanished races. These represent 
animals, birds, and men in the most varied attitudes ; some 
of whom have the body tattooed, and others are crowned 
with feathers ; whilst arabesques and scrolls complete the 
picture. 4 

Philippe Rey mentions, at the Sierra da Onca, on the 
rocks overlooking the right bank of the Rio Doce, the occur- 
rence of drawings in red ochre, sometimes singly and some- 
times grouped without apparent order (fig. 205). Is this 
an inscription, and must we attribute to these drawings any 
meaning beyond the caprice of the artist ? We should not 
venture to say ; for all interpretation appears to be impos- 

1 De Quatrefages, Cong. Anth. de Moscou, 1877. 
2 F. Denis, " Le Bresil,"p. 252. 

3 Hymencea curbarii. C. Rath, " Revista do Instituto historico, geogra- 
phico, ethnographico do Brazil," 1871. 

4 Debret, " Voy. pitt. et hist, au Bresil depuis 1816 jusqu'en 1831." Paris, 
1879. 



47o 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



sible. 1 In the province of Ceara are rocks, reminding us, by 
the engravings with which they are covered, of those 
in Scandinavia (fig. 206). A. de Saint-Hilaire mentions 
similar ones on the rocks of Tijuco ; Koster speaks of a 
boat sculptured in intaglio, 2 and every thing justifies us in 
hoping for new discoveries as travellers are able to penetrate 



FlG. 205. — Engravings on rock on the right bank of the Rio Doce. 

more freely into the virgin forests, savannahs, and deserts, 
making up a great part of the Brazilian territory. 

On the north, the zone of the so-called Piedras Pintadas, 
stretches into the Guianas, from the Paracaima mountains to 
Uruana. These drawings, according to Humboldt, date from 
different periods and are the work of very different people. 

1 " Bull. Soc. Anth.," 1879, p. 732. 

2 " Voyage dans la partie septentrionale du Bresil depuis 1809 jusqu'en 1815." 








PERU. 



471 



But who were these people ? The illustrious German, trav- 
eller adds nothing to make them known to us. These Pied- 
ras Pintadas are met with in the south as in the north, in 
Chili and in Peru, as well as in Arizona and New Mexico, 
presenting every where a remarkable analogy with each 
other. This constant resemblance, not met with to a simi- 
lar degree among any other peoples of the globe, is a racial 
characteristic, difficult to disregard. Ameghino reproduces a 
great many inscriptions, which he discovered within the 
bounds of the Argentine Republic, and which may be com- 
pared with those of Brazil 1 ; they appear to be more com- 
plicated, as may be seen by that of which we give a drawing 
fig. 207) ; their art 
is of a somewhat 
more d ev e 1 o p e d 
character, and they 
doubtless date from 
a more recent pe- 
riod. 

It is difficult to 
attribute the draw- 
ings of Brazil or of 
Uruguay to tribes 
of the Guarani race, 
though the case of 
the African Bushmen might justify us in supposing that 
savages, even as degraded as these are represented to have 
been, may have had sufficient intelligence to rudely repro- 
duce on stone the objects which struck their imagination. 
The same remark, however, will hardly apply to a subterra- 
nean passage of considerable length, excavated in very com- 
pact sandstone, which excavations have lately brought to 
light. 

On penetrating into el Palacio, as this subterranean pas- 

1 " Puro los objetos mas notables, creo son las numerosas inscripcionas 
sob re rocas que han descubierto en diversos puntos de la provincia." " La 
Antiguedad del Hombre," vol. I., p. 541, figs. 353 to 364. 




Fig. 206. — Inscription on rock at Ceara. 



472 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



sage is called, we are astonished at the sight of columns 
placed at regular distances, supporting a regular vaulted 
roof, and all converging toward a common centre. 1 Exca- 
vations, which have thus far been very superficial, have only 
yielded a few agate arrow-points ; now the nearest known 
deposit of agate is on the banks of the Rio Negro, so that 
it may probably have been from there that these arrow- 
points were derived. There is no serious tradition con- 




Fig. 207. — Rock covered with engravings. Province of Catamarca. 



nected with these structures, so that we will content our- 
selves with mentioning them, and adding that our ignorance 
is complete as to their date and origin. 

We must say the same for the pottery collected in large 
quantities in Brazil and La Plata. The most important dis- 
coveries of this kind are those made by Professor Hartt 2 on 
the island of Pacoval-Marajo and at Taperinha on the Rio 
Tapajos, one of the tributaries of the Amazon. They en- 

1 Mario Isola, " Caverna conocida por palacio suterreano de Porongos dep. de 
San Jose." (R. O. del U.) Ameghino, /, c, p. 461. " El Siglo de Monte- 
video.". 

2 " Report, Peabody Museum," 1873, p. 20. 



PERU. 



473 



able us to judge of the general form and ornamentation of 
this class of objects, the latter consisting chiefly of somewhat 
complicated lines traced on the soft clay or on that already 
hardened by the sun. The vases were also sometimes 
painted, and some cups in the form of birds, of the most 
brilliant colors, are especially mentioned. The handles pre- 
sent a no less curious variety, imitating sometimes animals, 
sometimes different parts of the human body, more often 
still grotesque heads. Imagination was certainly not want- 
ing to these unknown potters.- An urn two feet and a half 
high by four feet in diameter, a clumsy imitation of the 
human body, is the most remarkable of the objects sent by 
Hartt to the Peabody Museum. A number of similar urns, 
called by Hartt Face Urns, have also been found, some of 
them containing human bones. They evidently date from 
remote times, for nothing that we know of the mode of life 
of the Tupis, and especially of , their funereal rites, justifies 
us in attributing these urns to them. 

Some fragments of pottery have also been found under a 
kitchen midden near Santarem (province Para); Hartt dates 
this midden, which consists entirely of fresh-water shells, 
from the same period as the most ancient heaps in Florida. 
The broken fragments of pottery were accompanied by 
bones of various animals ; and these bones, enclosed in a 
compact breccia, might have supplied some useful indica- 
tions; but, unfortunately, they have not been described, or 
at least their description has not reached Europe. 

Barboso Rodriguez, commissioned by the Brazilian Gov- 
ernment to explore the valley of the Amazon, speaks of 
innumerable fragments of pottery heaped up eighteen miles 
above the junction of the Rio das Trombettas, also called 
the Orixamena, with the Amazon. 1 In this expedition he 
discovered several specimens of a stone image, called Mui- 
rakitan. It represents a toad or a frog, cut out of hard rock. 
According to tradition, these were amulets given by the 

1 H. Fischer : " Sur 1' origine des pierres dites d' Amazone et sur ce peuple. 
fabuleux," 1880, p. 127. 



474 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



Amazons to their lovers at their annual meeting on the 
banks of the Yamunda. Similar imitations of batrachia are 
met with in Mexico and Peru, and we have spoken of the 
superstitious idea connected with them by the Chibchas. 
As for the fable of the Amazons, it dates back to the ac- 
count of Orillana, one of Pizarro's companions, who went 
down the river in the years 1539 and 1540, and on his return 
to Spain told of the battles he had waged with women as 
warlike as men. These adversaries were probably the 
Uaupes, slim beardless Indians, with delicate extremities 
and feminine features, whose wives were only the witnesses 
of struggles in which they took no direct part. 

Lastly, to conclude every thing relating to the pottery of 
South America, we must mention some urns found in the 
islands situated to the north of Buenos Ayres, near the 
mouth of the Parana. 1 These urns are of plastic clay, and 
the baking to which they were subjected having been very 
superficial, they fall to pieces as soon as they are disinterred. 
The fragments vary from an inch to a quarter of an inch in 
thickness. It has been possible to preserve one, with very 
great care ; this is more than eighteen inches high, by a di- 
ameter of nearly twenty-three inches. It is of circular and 
perfectly regular form ; the upper part is rapidly inflected, 
so as to form a kind of neck two inches high, with a large 
opening. The vase was painted white, and ornamented 
with lines, circles, and squares painted red. These decora- 
tions vary infinitely, and a great many pieces of pottery 
bear ornaments in relief, moulded when soft. Each urn con- 
tained a seated skeleton, with the head bending over the 
breast and the knees drawn up toward the chin. All the 
bones were so much decomposed, by constant inundations 
of the cemetery, that it was impossible to examine them. 
In the province of Tucuman similar urns are mentioned, 
also containing skeletons. In that of La Rioja the bodies 
were placed in a similar position, but this time in rush- 

1 Burmeister : " Congres d' Anthropologic et d' Arclieologie prehistoriques," 
Brussels, 1872, p. 348. 



PERU. 



475 



baskets. The vases or baskets were deposited in natural or 
artificial caves. Here we have a very characteristic funeral 
rite. 

We have been careful to omit none of the discoveries 
made. These sculptures, paintings, and pieces of pottery, 
found at considerable distances from each other, appear to 
bear witness to a higher culture than that met with by the 
first Europeans who landed on the eastern coast of South 
America. In Brazil and Uruguay stone hatchets, weapons, 
and implements of every kind have frequently been picked 
up. Lately similar weapons, found in the auriferous de- 
posits of the province of Maranhao, on the north-east coast 
of Brazil, have been taken to the Anthropological Society 
of Paris. 1 These are, as Dr. Hamy remarked at the time, 
analogous to those which come to us from Guiana, Mar- 
tinique, Guadaloupe, Tahiti, and Upper Peru, thus pleading 
in favor of the affinity of the Guarani group with the races 
inhabiting the Antilles. For the present natives, these 
stones of diverse forms, which they look upon with supersti- 
tious terror, have all fallen from the sky. It is interesting 
to meet in America with a legend which is also prevalent 
among the nations of the Old World. 2 

Here closes our archaeological task. 5 We have given 
a resume of the very numerous works of man in the two 
Americas ; we must now study the physical conformation 
of that man himself, which will be the subject of the 
following chapter. 

1 " Bull. Soc. Anth. ," 1881, p. 206. 

2 " Les Premiers Hommes et les Temps pre-historiques," vol. I., p. 11. 

3 Barboso Rodriguez has recently found, writes the Emperor of Brazil, to M. 
de Quatrefages, a hatchet of jadeite ; which has been considered to be a 
remarkable fact, as no deposit of jadeite has been known in America until very 
lately. Within the last few years, however, jadeite has been discovered in situ 
h>oth in Alaska and Nicaragua. 



CHAPTER IX. 



THE MEN OF AMERICA. 

In the preceding chapters is related all that it is at present 
possible to state definitely about the times which preceded 
the Spanish invasion in America. We have seen the first 
inhabitants of the New World passing successively through 
the phases of a civilization analogous to that of our 
ancestors ; struggling with humble stone weapons against 
the gigantic animals which have for ever disappeared, piling 
up huge earthworks to defend their hearths, to honor their 
gods, or their dead, scaling almost inaccessible rocks to erect 
their dwellings, founding towns, building monuments, culti- 
vating the arts, establishing governments, and obeying fixed 
laws. We must now study these men from the point of view 
of their physical conformation, examine the consequences 
which result from these studies, and the, as yet very incom- 
plete, conclusions which they justify. 

Let us traverse once more the districts where we have 
noted the relics or mementos of man ; let us demand of the 
sand of the pampas, the mounds of the Mississippi, the hua- 
cas of Peru, the huts of the Eskimo, the bones which they 
conceal. Nothing that touches these questions can be in- 
different to the thinker. These men, of whom a few miser- 
able relics are the sole witnesses, have lived, loved, 
struggled, and suffered like ourselves. Their life has been 
like the life of our fathers, their past like the past of our 
own race ; their instincts, their aspirations, their ideas, were 
like the instincts, the aspirations, the ideas, of our predeces- 
sors." Unfortunately these bones, the importance of which 
was once not even suspected, have not always been pre- 

4/6 



THE MEN OE AMERICA. 



477 



served with proper care. The excavations undertaken, 
either out of curiosity or in search of treasures dear to 
credulity and avarice, were often not methodically con- 
ducted, or superintended by competent men ; hence nu- 
merous errors, of which it is well to warn the reader at the 
outset. 

Amongst the most ancient human relics discovered on 
American soil may be ranked a skull brought to light by the 
works of a railway near Denver, three and a half feet below 
the surface of the ground. 1 It lay in a loess which does not 
appear to have been at all displaced ; this loess covers im- 
mense plains, and offers a striking resemblance to the glacial 
deposits of Europe. We have already noted in our first 
chapter that it has yielded numerous implements, of a make 
very similar to those of European paleolithic times. Every 
thing points to the conclusion that this skull dates from the 
same period ; but we have no details as to its structure, and 
if it proves the existence of man on the American continent 
during the glacial period, it does not tell us what this man 
was like, who lived in the midst of glaciers. 

We have spoken of the very curious discoveries of Ame- 
ghino in the La Plata pampas, which discoveries were sup- 
plemented and confirmed by others in 1882. 2 The whole of 
the country between Buenos Ayres and Rosario along the 
Parana, is a vast undulating plain, about five thousand 
square leagues in area. 

The pampean formation is beneath a first layer of vege- 
table earth about three feet deep ; it includes an upper 
layer varying from fifteen to eighty feet, which goes down 
to the borders of the stream as far as the level of the water, 
and is characterized by the presence of the Glyptodon, Mylo- 
don, and Hoplophorus, with some equine and ruminant ani- 
mals ; also a second layer, from three to ten feet thick, 

1 Ch. Abbott : " The Paleolithic Implements from the Glacial Drift in the 
Valley of the Delaware near Trenton, New Jersey." " Report, Peabody 
Museum, 1878," vol. II., p. 257. 

2 C. Vogt : " Squelette humain associe aux glyptodontes," " Bull. Soc. 
-Anth.," 20th Oct., 1 88 1. 



478 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



where the bones are less friable and better preserved. It 
contains the remains of the Mastodon, Megatherium, and 
Toxodon. Roth, to whom we owe these details, looks upon 
the two layers as belonging to the quaternary age ; but he 
asserts that in his numerous excavations he has always 
found the two faunae completely distinct. 

It was in the first layer that the human relics were picked 
up, near Pontimelo on the north of the province of Buenos 
Ayres. They included a skull with the lower jaw ; the cer- 
vical vertebrae were at a distance from the skull ; the ribs, 
lay here and there ; and one femur adhered to the pelvis. 
The bones of one hand were in their place; those of the 
other, with those of the foot, were dispersed ; and several 
were missing. 

All the bones were decomposed, and the outer parts were 
eaten away by decay. They were placed beneath the cara- 
pax of a Glyptodon, turned upside down. Under the skull 
were found an oyster-shell and an implement of deer-horn, 
on which human workmanship Avas scarcely apparent. 

Such are the facts; we are bound to mention them, in 
order to omit nothing in relation to the important subject 
under notice. Unfortunately, we have no information as to 
the shape of the skull, or that of the long bones. The rapid 
displacements resulting from rain, wind, and rivulets of 
water, resulting from the constant storms of the district, pre- 
vent us, moreover, from being positively certain of the 
contemporaneity of the owner of the bones with the Glypto- 
don. 

We have nothing to add to what we have said about the 
human skeletons met with in the caves, which formed the 
homes or burial-places of the ancient Americans. Some of 
these bones probably date from a very remote antiquity, but 
the observations made are not yet sufficiently numerous to 
admit of any final conclusion. 

We shall make but one exception in favor of the skull 
of Lagoa Santa (Brazil), and will borrow the description 
given by M. de Quatrefages at the meeting of the Anthro- 



THE MEN OF AMERICA. 



479 



pological Congress held at Moscow in 1879. 1 " This skull, " 
he says, " belonged to an individual more than thirty years 
old ; outside it presents a metallic, bronzed aspect ; its 
weight is considerable. The zygomatic arches are broken 
in the middle ; the styloid processes have disappeared ; on 
the right temple we see an elliptical opening forty-eight mil- 
limetres by twenty, probably caused by the blow of some 
instrument which caused death. The forehead is low and 
retreating, as in all American skulls ; the glabella is promi- 
nent ; the supra-orbital ridges are very prominent ; and the 
occiput is almost vertical. The external occipital protuber- 
ance is wide, smooth, and not prominent ; the plane of the 
foramen magnum carried forward includes a horizontal line 
joining the two orbits. The cheek-bones are prominent, 
and project in front. The orbits are quadrangular, and the 
lateral walls of the skull are vertical. The mastoid pro- 
cesses are small, and almost completely united. On the 
upper jaw-bone we see fourteen* alveoli more or less frac- 
tured, and the second molar tooth is worn away." 2 

We must also remark that the capacity of the cranium 
(1388 cubic centimetres), although small, is greater than the 
average of the skulls of the Mound Builders, and that the 
cephalic index (69.72) is of a pronounced dolichocephalic 
type. 3 The wearing away of the incisors, of which we have 
already had occasion to speak, attracted the attention of 
Lund. He looked upon this characteristic as peculiar to the 
man of Sumidouro, and thought that it ought to separate 
him from the various human races, except perhaps from the 
ancient Egyptians, among whom the same peculiarity is met 
with. To De Quatrefages, on the contrary, this peculiarity, 

1 Besides the account given of this Congress, may be consulted the "Me- 
moires de la Soc. d' Hist, et de Geog. du Bresil." 

2 A skull, the general form of which is very much the same, has been found 
at Rock Bl"ff, on the borders of Illinois. Schmidt : s< Zur Urgeschichte Nord 
Amerika," Archiv fur Anthropologic, vol. V., p. 241. 

3 Lacerda and Peixotto affirm that the ancient races of Brazil were dolicho- 
cephalic. The same peculiarity is of frequent occurrence in the skulls picked 
up in the plains of the Argentine Republic, and Sehor Moreno, in his turn, as- 
serts the same to be true with regard to those from the paraderos of Patagonia. 



48o 



PRE-IIISTORIC AMERICA. 



noted amongst all the fossil European races, establishes an 
unexpected relationship between the primitive inhabitants 
of the Old and the New World. " It is curious," he adds, 
" to see so striking an artificial characteristic, and which can 
only result from a common mode of mastication, occurring 
amongst paleontological peoples and then disappearing en- 
tirely amongst the living races of the two continents." 

But the danger of too hasty generalization is here exhib- 
ited in a striking manner, for this feature is common not 
only to most crania of the northern Indians of North 
America, but exhibited almost without exception among the 
Eskimo and Hyperborean people now living in North 
America and northeastern Asia. 

Quatrefages also affirmed that the shape of the head found 
in the crania of Lagoa Santa is met with on the shores of 
both oceans, and as far as the heart of the Peruvian Cordil- 
lera. It is also seen in two modern Aymara skulls, and in 
some heads examined by Wiener. We may reasonably con- 
clude that the race of which the head found by Lund is a 
type 1 contributed a share, at present undetermined, in the 
constitution of the Brazilian and Andeo-Peruvian races. 
The present peoples of America, like those of Europe, are 
the issue of the intermixture of several races. The crossings 
are true modifications of fundamental types. The men of 
the primitive races have resisted these modifications ; they 
have not yet completely disappeared, and in spite of varia- 
tions from one extreme to the other, an attentive study fre- 
quently enables us to recognize a predominant type. 2 

The exploration of the shell-heaps, which are very nume- 
rous on the coasts of Oregon and California, have led to 
interesting results. 3 In many places excavations have yield- 
ed the mortars and pestles so characteristic of the ancient 

1 Quatrefages attaches importance to the fact that in the Lagoa Santa skull 
the vertical diameter exceeds the maximum transverse diameter. This double 
character also recurs among living men. 

2 De Quatrefages and Hamy : "Crania Ethnica." Foster: "Prehistoric 
Races of the U. S.," Chicago, 1873. 

3 P. Schumacher " Report, Peabody Museum," 1878, vol. II., p. 203. 



THE MEN OF AMERICA. 



inhabitants of the country, pieces of pottery, little steatite 
vases, pipes, daggers, knives, stone arrow-points, carvings of 
hard stone, and bone or shell implements. In one of these 
shell-heaps, in the midst of rubbish of all sorts, were picked 
up thirty skulls, in a pretty good state of preservation, and 
two or three nearly complete skeletons. 

The Island of Santa Catalina contains a steatite quarry, 
the importance of which is attested by the number of vases, 
pots, and plates in every stage of fabrication. In the quarry 
lay fifty skulls, which had belonged to these ancient work- 
men. Twenty-nine were in a state to be measured ; the 
capacity of one of them was very great, amounting to 1680 
c.c.; but this was an isolated case ; the average is low, being 
only 1326 c.c. for the male skulls and 1279 c.c. for the female 
skulls. 

The skulls taken from the shell-heaps of Florida, which latter 
'.consist chiefly of fresh-water shells, give a somewhat higher 
average (1375 c.c). They are of remarkable thickness, reach- 
ing nearly half an inch, and one of these skulls weighs no 
less than 995 grammes, a weight rarely reached by fossil 
skulls. 1 

Rare as are still the bones, especially the skulls, of the 
Mound Builders which have been carefully examined, either 
from the point of view of their structure, or that of the 
deposit in which they were discovered, we are already able 
to establish certain general characteristics, such as the small 
height and capacity of the skull, the obliquity of the zygo- 
matic arch, flattening of the tibia, and perforation of the 
humerus. These characteristics are met with in most skele- 
tones of the so-called Mound Builders, and they may even 
help us to distinguish between their bones and those of the 
more modern Indians, who often appropriate for their own 
dead the tombs of those who preceded them. 

In saying that these are the general characteristics of the 
more ancient bones found in the mounds, we do not pretend 

J " Report, Peabody Museum," 1871, p. 13. Foster: " Preh. Races," p- 
159- 



432 



PRE-HIS TORIC A ME RICA . 



to deny the existence of numerous exceptions. Nowhere,, 
either in the Old or New World, do we find exactly similar 
forms, or absolutely typical racial characteristics. Exces- 
sive variety is the general law, which still remains unex- 
plained. One of the most ancient skulls which can be 
attributed to the mound period was discovered in the county 
of New Madrid, Missouri, under a mound which contained 
numerous human remains. This skull lay at a depth of 
about thirty feet and from the mound rose venerable trees, 
the offspring of a yet more ancient forest, for their roots, 
clasped the old trunks of their predecessors. Since the 
erection of this mound, the Mississippi had accumulated 
alluvial deposits to the height of six feet. Near by was 
picked up, under identical conditions, the tooth of a masto- 
don. Every thing points to the conclusion that the original 
owner of this tooth was the contemporary of the man with 
whom chance had associated him in a common tomb. If a 
single proof is not enough to justify a belief in the extreme 
antiquity of this skull, it would seem that the total of the 
proofs we give will enable us to assert it with something of 
confidence. We still hesitate, however; for not only is it 
small and oval, differing little from modern skulls, but Swal- 
low, in giving an account of these facts to the American 
Association for the Advancement of Science 1 added a 
description of an excavation under his own supervision in a 
neighboring mound, which he claims to be of the same peri- 
od. Several bodies had been deposited in this sepulchre, 
the bones were decomposed, and only a few little heaps of 
gray dust remained, last relics of man. On the other hand 
were picked up numerous fragments of pottery, and vases, 
ornamented with drawings representing heads, busts, some- 
times the entire bodies of men and women. These figures, 
are of an elevated type, too little in harmony with the 
antiquity claimed for the mound. 

In other places we come to opposite conclusions. In 1872 
Foster 2 called attention to the resemblance of certain skulls 



1 "Report, Am. Assoc.," Portland, 1873, p. 403. 
'"Report, Am. Assoc.," Dubuque, Iowa, 1872. 



THE MEN OF AMERICA. 



483 



found near Chicago, at Merom, Indiana, and at Dubuque, 
Iowa. This resemblance also exists between the weapons, 
pottery, and ornaments, as well as in the earthworks, and 
justifies us in deciding on the identity of the population of 
these regions. The bones present the characteristics we are 
in the habit of looking upon as belonging to inferior races. 
Thus the examination of a skull found at Dubuque, that of 
another of from Dunleith mound, Illinois (fig. 208, D), with 
the study of numerous cranial fragments found at Merom, 1 
and at Chicago, show the well-known characteristics of the 
Neanderthal 2 skull (fig. 208, C), one of the lowest of those 
which excavations have yielded in Europe. 

These are not exceptional facts ; the skull found at 
Stimpson's mound (fig. 208, B) reminds us of that of Bor- 



A 




Fig. 208. — A , European skull. B, Stimpson's mound skull. C, The Neander- 
thal skull. Z>, Dunleith mound skull. E, Skull of Chimpanzee. 

reby, the degraded type of which is celebrated ; those from 
Kennicott mound are also characterized by a very low fore- 
head. The skull of an infant, 3 as far as can be determined, 
for it is very incomplete, is still stranger, for it resembles, 
more than any other known skull, those of the anthropoid 
apes. 

1 It is only fair to add that other skulls, found near Merom, are of a superior 
type ; but they were taken from stone graves, the walls of which are formed of 
veiy thin slabs of stone, covered in with flat stones. It is probable that these 
sepulchres are those of a later period. 

2 " Les Premiers Hommes et les Temps prehistoriques," vol. I., p. 149, 

3 This skull was kept in the collections of the Academy of Sciences at Chicago. 
It was destroyed in the great fire of 1871. 



4§4 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



The same facts are established in Missouri. Two crania 
were taken from a regular sepulchre, under a mound that 
had not been disturbed. The forehead in these crania is 
low, the head flat (fig. 209), whilst other skulls found beneath 
the same mound are not of this type. The explorers at first 
made the mistake of attributing the former to a secondary 
burial 1 ; but careful examination proved that all the bones 
dated from the same period. Similar vases had been placed 
in similar positions with each body, and the mound had 
been erected after the burial of all the bodies, that these ex- 
cavations were to bring to light. 

A skull obtained from a mound in Dakota 2 has also a very 
retreating forehead, orbits nearly as prominent as those of 




Fig. 209. — Fragment of a skull from Missouri. 



the long-armed ape, and a pronounced prognathism ; the 
jaw is massive, and in contrast with these inferior character- 
istics the nose is aquiline and well formed. Skulls of an 
analogous type have been found in certain sepulchres of 
Chihuahua, where the bodies were not stretched out hori- 
zontally, but seated in a slightly stooping posture. The 
most ancient skulls of Ohio have also this retreating forehead, 
and Dr. Lapham mentions two skulls, preserved in the Mil- 
waukee Museum, with low forehead and prominent brows. 
The doctor looks upon these as typical characteristics of the 

1 Conant : " Footprints of Vanished Races," p. 106. 

2 A perpendicular line traced from the lower jaw to the level of the top of the 
skull would pass about two inches from the forehead. Short : " North Ameri- 
cans -of Antiquity," pp. 128, 167. This skull was discovered by General H. 
W. Thomas. 



THE MEN OF AMERICA. 



485 



ancient races of Wisconsin, characteristics subsequently 
modified either by crossing with a superior race or perhaps 
by the progress of the primitive race itself. 

The prominence of the brows is no less exaggerated 
in two skulls, one from a mound in the Mississippi Valley, 1 
the other from a tumulus in Tennessee. 2 The teeth of the 
latter are worn and several of them show traces of decay. 
The head is in every case depressed on the right side, probably 
from the pressure of the superincumbent earth after burial. 

We have already spoken of the mounds erected in the 
region of the Great Lakes, and we have said that they were 
the work of a people that had covered the valleys of the 
Ohio and Mississippi with earthworks. 3 We may mention 
the great mound of the Red River, in which were found the 
fragments of a skull in a bad state of preservation, remind- 
ing us, in its massive proportions, of that of Neanderthal ; 
and a circular mound near the Detroit River, which latter 
yielded eleven skeletons, and besides them sepulchral vases, 
hatchets, arrow-points, scissors, stone drills, pipes, and shell 
ornaments. The skulls are mostly in bad condition. One 
from Circular mound has a cranial index of 74.1, one from 
Western mound of 76.7, and another from Fort Wayne 
of 77.3. Objects were also obtained made of copper which 
doubtless came from Lake Superior, a needle several inches 
long, and a collar made of seeds, threaded on a cord manu- 
factured out of the fibres of bark. Did all these objects 
form part of the furniture of the tomb? We are justified 
in doubting it, for the cinders of a hearth were also dis- 
covered, and we may presume that the habitation of the liv- 
ing had succeeded the last abode of the dead. This habita- 
tion must have been very ancient, for the present inhabitants 
of the country remember to have seen the mound covered 
with venerable trees, which have now disappeared. 

1 American Antiquarian, July, 1879, 

2 Jones : "Explorations of Aboriginal Remains of Tennessee," "Smith. 
Cont.," vol. XXII. 

3 Gillman: "The Ancient Men of the Great Lakes," Am. Ass., Detroit, 
1875. "Cong, des Am.," Luxembourg, 1877, P- 65. 



486 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



One of the skulls found in these last excavations and 
deposited in the Peabody Museum presents important peculi- 
arities. It is singularly low and long, and although adult, 
for the sagittal suture is united, its capacity scarcely amounts 
to fifty-six cubic inches, or nine hundred and seventeen 
cubic centimetres. According to Morton's tables the mean 
capacity of an Indian skull is eighty-four cubic inches, and 
the minimum capacity observed by that eminent anthro- 
pologist was sixty-nine cubic inches. The difference is 
decided, and this skull if normal is certainly one of the 
smallest known* Another peculiarity is no less important : 




Fig. 210. — Skull from a mound in Fig. 2II. — Skull from a mound in 

Tennessee. Missouri. 

the distance between the temporal crests on either side 
of the frontal bone nearly always varies between three and 
four inches. The minimum known at the present day is 
two inches, and yet in the Detroit skull it is not more than 
three fourths of an inch. This is doubtless a very pronounced 
Simian character, such as is met with in the chimpanzee, 
for example. Professor Wyman, who carefully examined 
this skull, asserts that it has not been subjected to any 
artificial deformation. Here then we have a curious fact ; 
but-it impossible to come to any serious conclusion from a 
case of such extreme variation, a variation which is 



THE MEN OF AMERICA. 



487 



probably individual, for it is not met with in any of the 
other skulls from the same source. 1 

Though most of the skulls which can be attributed with 
any certainty to the so-called Mound Builders are short or 
brachycephalic, there are numerous exceptions ; and often 
beneath the same mound have been found skulls which 
appear to date from the same period, yet which present dif- 
ferent forms ; numerous excavations have established similar 
facts in the Old World, which naturally lessens the impor- 
tance that one is disposed to attribute to mere form. 

A few examples will better elucidate the questions. 
Putnam 2 mentions two skulls, one brachycephalic and the 
other dolichocephalic, lying in the same tomb. Of eight 
skulls from the great Red River mound, three only are 
brachycephalic. On the other hand, of four found on 
Chambers' Island, Wisconsin, three are decidedly brachy- 
cephalic. Ten skulls have been found under the sepulchral 
mound at Fort Wayne, of which one is long, or dolicho- 
cephalic, while the others are medium, or orthocephalic, or 
even brachycephalic, with a cephalic index varying from 
seventy-seven to eighty-two in those that it has been possi- 
ble to measure. The forehead is retreating, the eyebrows 
are prominent, and the bone is of average thickness. These 
characteristics are met with in all the skulls, although in this 
case the interment appears to date from different periods. 
In Michigan, the skulls found under the mounds are dolicho- 
cephalic, and the tibiae platycnemic. 3 

Dr. Farquharson 4 has examined twenty-five skulls ob- 
tained from different mounds ; the average cephalic index 
was 75.8, or in other words the form is slightly dolicho- 
cephalic. Carr examined sixty-seven skulls from the stone 
graves of Tennessee, of which nineteen are brachycephalic, 

1 " Report, Peabody Museum," 1873, P* I2 - " Report, Am. Assoc.," Buffalo, 
1876. 

2 " Report, Peabody Museum," 1878, vol. II., p. 316. 

3 Hubbard : " Am. Ant.," March, 1880. 

4 " Observations on the Crania from the Stone Graves in Tennessee." " Re- 
port, Peabody Museum," vol. II., p. 361. 



488 



PRE-HIS TORIC A M ERIC A . 



five only dolichocephalic, eighteen orthocephalic, and fifteen 
artificially depressed. 1 Jones, after the examination of 
twenty-one skulls, also found in the stone graves of Tennes- 
see, obtained a somewhat different result. He found no 
dolichocephalic skull, but five w r ere orthocephalic, eight 
brachycephalic, and eight artificially deformed (fig. 210). 

In Missouri two categories of skulls have been authenti- 
cated, differing as much from each other as do those, for in- 
stance, of the Caucasian and the Negro races. 2 The skele- 
tons are in the same position. Vases, weapons, and imple- 
ments of the same kind have been placed alike near both, 
and it is difficult to suppose that they do not belong to the 
same race, or that they do not date from the same period. 

Individual variations are considerable. The skull of a 
child from Atacama is mentioned, in which the cephalic 
index is only 66 ; and another, found under a mound of 
Alabama, in which it reaches 11 1.8. Except, perhaps, in 
such extreme cases, 3 the same facts can be authenticated in 
Europe during pre-historic times, and have been perpetuated 
to our own day. Must we look upon this as the result of a 
very ancient admixture of races, as examples of atavism, or can 
it be that the mode of life and differences of the occupation, 
prolonged during centuries, have exercised such influence ? 
Whataver may be the cause of these modifications, it is cer- 
tain that they exist, and we must not fail to recognize that, 
in taking the shape of the skull as characteristic of a race, 
we obtain results as unsatisfactory in the New as in the Old 
World. 

We are far from accepting the theory of Morton 4 who 
constantly proclaimed a unity of physical type amongst all 
the inhabitants of the two Americas, with the sole exception 

1 " Recent Explorations of Mounds near Davenport, Iowa." " Report, Am. 
Assoc.," Detroit, 1875. 

2 Conant : " Footprints of Vanished Races." 

3 "In no part of the world," said Retzius, " does cranial morphology present 
differences more marked or extremes more exaggerated." " Ethnol. Schriften," 
PP-" 37. 9 8 - 

4 " Crania Americana ; or, A Comparative View of the Skulls of Various Abo- 
riginal Nations of North and South America," Philadelphia, 1839. 



THE MEN OF AMERICA. 



489 



of the Eskimo. 1 To him the long skulls of the Peruvians do 
not differ from the round ones of the Indians, except on 
account of the pressure to which they were subjected during 
infancy, and the result of which would have been to modify 
the primitive form. He adds that amongst all those races 
the same mode of burial was adopted, and that from Canada 
to Patagonia the dead were placed in a sitting posture. We 
have already shown how little foundation there is for this 
latter assertion. The first, though it had been accepted by 
such savants as Agassiz, Nott, Meigs, and many others, is 
also now generally abandoned, and important discoveries 
are every day rendering its further defence impossible. 

The form of the skull can have, however, but a very gen- 
eralized value. We find among the Eskimo such extremes 
of length as 199 and 165 mm., with respective breadths of 
137 and 144 mm., which is sufficient to show that great cau- 
tion must be used in generalizing from such characters. 

This negative conclusion is the only one that can as yet 
be formulated. The differences of opinion between the 
most eminent anthropologists add to the intrinsic difficul- 
ties which are already so great. Let us take, for example, 
the Scioto skull discovered under a mound near Chillicothe. 
This skull, remarkable for its vertical and transverse devel- 
opment, and for the truncated form of the hinder portion, 
was long looked upon as presenting the most complete type 
of the Mound crania. 2 Messrs. De Ouatrefages and Hamy, 3 
in their magnificent work tell us that " the orbits are wide 
and quadrangular, the nose is prominent, the upper jaws, 
are deep, heavy, massive, and slightly projecting." Dr. 
Wilson describes the skull as decidedly brachycephalic ; ac- 
cording to him the forehead is wide and lofty, and the de- 

1 " Quatrefages and Hamy, in the " Crania Ethnica," place the Eskimo in 
the Mongolian group because they appear to them, as to Morton, more nearly 
related to the yellow type than to the American. The Eskimo are generally 
dolichocephalic. 

2 Squier and Davis : " Anc. Mon. of the Mississippi Valley," " Smith. Cont.'"' 
vol. I., pi. XLVII. and XLVIII. 

3 " Crania Ethnica," p. 464. 



490 



PRE -HIS TOPIC A ME PICA . 



pression noticed is artificial. 1 Morton gives a different de- 
scription, and Dr. Foster looks upon the Scioto skull as 
merely that of a modern Indian. These contradictions il- 
lustrate the inconvenience of too absolute theories in the 
present state of science. An attempt is made to assign all 
the skulls of one race to a single type, without taking into 
consideration the vast territory inhabited by that race, or 
the biological conditions under which it lived. 

What would appear to be proved is the relatively small 
cranial capacity of the Mound skulls, which is also a charac- 
ter found among the various living races of America, espe- 
cially the Greenland Eskimo. Some measurements will 
enable us to judge better of this. 



Source. 


Xo. of Skulls. 


Maximum 


Minimum. 


Average. 






c. c. 




c. c. 


Skulls examined by Farquharson . 
Skulls examined by Jones ' l 


15 


1362 


936 


Il88 


21 


1667 


I IOO 


1318 


Tennessee Stone Graves 


30 


1825 


1084 


1341 


Kentucky ..... 


24 


x 540 


1130 


1313 


Albany . . 


9 


1540 


1130 


I IOO 


Rock River ..... 


11 


1540 


1130 


1205 


Henry County .... 


4 


1540 


1130 


1205 


Santa-Catalina Id. California j 


18 Male 
18 Female 


1680 
145 1 


1282 
IO98 


1326 

1279 


Santa-Cruz, California 3 . . j 


40 Male 
32 Female 


1625 
1528 


1 144 

1048 


1365 
1219 



These averages are low, and they appear still lower if we 
compare them with those obtained from other races. We 
borrow most of the following table from a very interesting 
work by Dr. Topinard, published in the Revue cT Anthropo- 
logie, July, 1882 : 



1 "Preh. Man," vol. II., p. 127. Carr has also published in the reports of 
the Peabody Museum an excellent article on this question : " Observations on 
the Crania from the Stone Graves of Tennessee." 

2 The average for the skulls of men is 1459, for those of women, 1250. 
Jones, " Smiths. Cont.," vol. XXII. 

3 According to Morton, the skulls of the Indian of to-day give on an average 
84 cubic inches or 1359 c. c, and not 1376, as stated by Dr. Wyman. 



THE MEN OF AMERICA. 49 1 



No. of Skulls 
Examined. 


Races. 


Capacity. 




WHITE RACES. 




25 


Solutre ; paleolithic period .... 


1525 C. C. 


T 9 


Cave of the Dead Man ; neolithic period . 


1543 " 


44 


Baye Cave . . ... . . 


1483 " 


33 




1552 " 


65 


Merovingians of Chelles ..... 


1465 " 


125 


Parisians of the 12th century .... 


1449 " 


49 
88 


Dutch of Zaandam ...... 


1463 " 


Auvergnats of St. Nectaire .... 


1529 " 


63 




1479 " 


57 


Basques of St. Jean de Luz .... 


1556 " 


60 


Basques of Zaraus, Guipuzcoa .... 


1499 " 


27 




1494 " 


11 


Croats, Slav, race ...... 


1433 " 


28 


Corsicans of Avapesa, 18th century . 


1475 " 


rg 




1447 " 




YELLOW RACES. 




28 




i486 c. c. 


29 


Javanese (coll. Vrolik) ..... 


T 473 " 


42 




1449 " 


11 




1585 " 


101 


Eskimo of Greenland (Hayes) .... 


1250 " 


42 


Eskimo of N. W. America (Dall) . . • . 


1401 " 


25 


Aleutians (Dall) 


1409 " 




BLACK RACES. 




21 


Hottentots 


1317 c. c. 


21 


Nubians ........ 


1329 " 


21 


Australians ....... 


1337 " 


21 


Western Negroes ...... 


1423 " 


21 


New Caledonians ...... 


1462 " 



We must descend very low in the human scale to find 
races presenting so small a cranial capacity as the American 
Indians of the Mound period. 

A few exceptional skulls have, however, been found ; one 
of those from a stone grave of Tennessee measures no less 
than 1825 c. c. 1 ; it is equal, in consequence, to the skull of 
Cuvier. Another skull is mentioned, also picked up in a 
stone grave, which reaches 1667 c. c. Dr. Jones possesses 
one in his collection of 1688 c. c; the Army Medical Museum 
at Washington another, discovered in Illinois, of 1785 c. c; 
and Schoolcraft speaks of one of 1704 c. c. Compared with 
the Albany skull, which only measured 936 c. c., 2 these dif- 

1 L. Carr : " Obs. on the Crania from the Stone Graves in Tennessee." 
" Peabody Museum Reports," vol. II., p. 383. 

2 Wyman mentions a skull of capacity amounting only to 530 c. c, but it is 
that of a microcephalic person. 



49 2 



PRE-HIS TORIC A ME RICA . 



ferences are considerable. Skulls of extreme size are a grave 
argument against the value of averages ; it is evident that 
they vitiate all the results that can be obtained. 

If it remain proved that the development of the cranial 
volume amongst the various races of the New World is in- 
ferior to that of other human races, whether ancient or 
modern, except perhaps those who are accounted the most 
inferior of the globe, this may be an anatomical characteristic 
rather than a psychological one, and we must not assume 
from it that the people were of inferior intelligence. Other 
causes doubtless influence the intellectual worth ; no one 
would dream of comparing the ancient Peruvians, the most 
advanced people of South America, with the wandering, 
savage, and blood-thirsty Indians of North America ; yet the 
average capacity of the skulls of the latter is 1359 c. c, 
whilst that of the Peruvians is only 1250 c. c. In glancing 
through the preceding table, it is easy to see that the 
cranial capacity is not at all in harmony with the value of 
the race, and if from an individual point of view the skulls 
of Cuvier and Byron are of large capacity, numbers of re- 
markable and even of eminent men might be mentioned 
whose cranial capacity was, on the contrary, very small. The 
skull of Dante scarcely exceeds the average, whilst three 
skulls of unknown men, taken from the potter's field of Paris,, 
reach the maximum. The superiority of a people, therefore, 
does not depend either on cranial capacity or on the charac- 
teristics of certain bones. It is evident that other factors 
enter into the question, of which we are as yet pretty 
ignorant. 

The flattened form of the shin bone or tibia, called platyc- 
nemia, is frequently met with among the various American 
races (figs. 212, 213); it is often more pronounced than in 
the gorilla or chimpanzee. 1 Wyman looks upon this as a 
distinctive characteristic, for under certain mounds it is met 
with in nearly all the tibia discovered, and those in which it 

1 With these two monkeys, the mean relation between the two diameters is 67. 
Gillman : "Rep. Am. Assoc.," Detroit, 1875, p. 316. 



THE MEN OF AMERICA. 



493 



does not occur generally belong to men buried later than 
the erection of the tumulus. But, although these platycnemic 
or sabre-blade-like tibise are common among the big 
monkeys, it does not follow that we ought to look upon it 
as characteristic of inferiority. While reserving this point, 
it is certain that among the bones collected from the mounds 
of Kentucky, Missouri, Michigan, and Indiana, as also from 
the Florida shell-heaps, the number of those in which platyc- 
nemia occurs may be estimated at thirty per cent. It is no 
less marked in a certain number of tibise discovered in the 
recesses of the celebrated Mammoth Cave. 1 

Platycnemia is yet more apparent, and the sharp edge 
more pronounced, in the tibiae taken from the great mound 
of the Red River, and in those of Fort Wayne. 2 The tumuli 




FlG. 212. — Section of an ordinary tibia Fig. 213. — Section of a platycnemic 
at the level of the nutrient foramen. tibia. 

of the St. Clair River, those erected near Lake Huron, with 
a very ancient one situated on Chambers' Island, Wisconsin, 
furnish analogous examples. 3 Beneath all these mounds, 
human remains are associated with stone implements, bones 
of birds and fish, rude pottery and necklaces of teeth or little 
bones, all objects attesting a poorly developed culture. 

On some of these tibiae the relation of the transverse 
diameter to the antero-posterior is only 0.48 ; even this is 
not the extreme limit, for in certain bones from a mound 

1 " Report, Peabody Museum," 1875, p. 49. 

2 Gillman : " Rep., Am. Assoc.," Buffalo, 1876. 

3 " Report, Peabody Museum," 1873. Short: "North Americans of An- 
tiquity," p. 30. 



494 



PRE-HIS TORIC A ME RICA . 



near the Detroit River it is as low — exceptionally so, we 
must add — as 0.43, and even 0.40. These figures are re- 
markable, and they will be better understood if we compare 
them with those given by Broca for the old man of Cro- 
Magnon ; the relation between the two diameters, he tells 
us, is 0.68, and yet this is one of the extremest cases of pla- 
tycnemia observed in France. 

Platycnemia, as well as the compression of the femora, 
which is generally considerable, are perhaps the results of 
the truly immense efforts that the ancient inhabitants of 
America, being without domestic animals, were condemned 
to make. They had to follow game on foot, and overtake it 
by speed ; they had to carry heavy loads across mountains 
and marshes ; so that it need not cause much wonder if their 
physical conformation was affected by such a mode of life. 
Some anatomists look upon these anomalies as the result of 
greater liberty in the movement of the foot and a more con- 
stant habit of prehension. Perhaps we ought also to take 
into account the kind of food eaten by these populations, 
which in course of time might modify the bony parts. It 
is, however, certainly an indication of a low type of physical 
structure. 

We have said that the flattening of the tibia was much 
more rare in Europe than in America. It is easy, however, 
to give examples of it on the former continent ; Busk 1 was 
one of the first to notice it in bones from Gibraltar ; Carter 
Blake, 2 in others found in Wiltshire, which date from neo- 
lithic times ; Dr. Prunieres, 3 in numerous skeletons from the 
department of Lozere, also dating from the same period ; 
Baron von Duben, 4 on those from Scandinavia ; Bertrand, 5 
on a tibia found at Clichy ; Broca, 6 on another from Sainte- 

1 " Bull. Soc. Anth.," 1S69, p. 14S. 

2 " Journal of the Anth. Soc. of London," 1865, p. 146. 

3 " Bull. Soc. Anth.," 1878, p. 214. 

4 "The tibia is always compressed, resembling a sabre" ("Cong. preh. de. 
Copenhague," 1869, p. 243). " Mat.," 1869, p. 544. 

5 ," Bull. Soc. Anth.," February, 1869. 
• " Bull. Soc. Anth.," 1866, p. 642. 



THE MEN OF AMERICA. 



495 



Suzanne (Sarthe). Side by side with these specimens the 
tibiae found by Dupont in the caves of Belgium, 1 with a great 
number of others dating, to all appearance, from paleolithic 
times, are triangular, resembling those of modern Europeans. 
The characteristics, then, which have been proposed in order 
to differentiate races have existed from the most remote an- 
tiquity, and among the most varied peoples ; this is without 
doubt an important fact. 

The perforation of the humerus has also been considered 
a racial characteristic by Dr. Topinard, although we are un- 
able to say what race or races, if any, bequeathed this peculi- 
arity to their descendants. It is very frequently noticed in 
bones from the mounds, and often occurs upon half of those 
picked up. Going toward the south this proportion dimin- 
ishes, until it is no more than thirty-one per cent. The Pea- 
body Museum contains no less than eighty humeri found 
beneath the mounds of the west, or under those of Florida, 
of which twenty-five are perforated ; it also contains fifty- 
two humeri belonging to white races, in only two of which 
this typical characteristic occurs. 2 Side by side with these 
facts, of ten skeletons found at Fort Wayne but one has per- 
foration of the olecranon fossa. 

It is difficult, then, to establish a general law ; it has been 
said that this perforation 3 is a characteristic of physical in- 
feriority, which assertion is founded on the fact that it is of 
more frequent occurrence among the anthropoid apes 4 than 
among men, among negroes 5 or Indians than among whites; 

1 Hamy tells us, however, that a tibia from the Goyet cave is platycnemic. 
" Bull. Soc. Anth.," 1873, p. 427. 

2 " Report, Peabody Museum," 1872, p. 28. " Cong, des Am.," Luxem- 
bourg, 1877, vol. I., p. 69. 

3 Which may have been the result of the length of the bone hindering the play 
of the articulation. 

4 Wyman has authenticated the perforation of the olecranon fossa on but one 
of the humeri of the two male gorillas that he was able to examine. He did 
not find it on a female chimpanzee, nor on a male ourang-outang, both belong- 
ing to the British Museum ; the Anthropological Society of Paris owns a fine 
gorilla skeleton, which has one of the humeri perforated. 

6 Of fourteen negro humeri preserved in the Jardin des Plantes seven are- 
perforated. 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



that its tendency is to diminish among the European races, 
and that it is more often met with in bones from ancient 
cemeteries than amongst our contemporaries. 1 This conclu- 
sion appears to us still somewhat premature, in the present 
state of anthropology. 

It has also been said that the people of the Mound period 
had very long arms ; this again is called a simian character- 
istic. Gillman has, in fact, recently shown that there is 
nothing in it, at least with regard to the men buried under 
the mound of Fort Wayne, and that estimating the average 
stature at 1,000 we have the length of the arm as follows: 
In modern Indians . . . 353 
Whites . . . . . 348 

Mound skeletons . . . 343 

The arms of the last-named, therefore, far from being 
longer, were shorter than those of some modern Indians, or 
white men. But it is probable that the material is still too 
scanty for any positive conclusions. 

The Mound people appear to have varied as much in 
stature as our modern races. A skeleton is mentioned, 
found in a stone grave of Tennessee, which measured more 
than seven feet 1 ; another, discovered at Fort Wayne, only 
reached five feet eleven inches, Two skeletons, one from 
Utah, the other from Michigan, 3 exceeded six feet. The 
latter, enclosed in a regular winding-sheet of clay, was re- 
markable for its retreating forehead and prominence of its 
brows. Beside it lay hewn stones and fragments of pottery, 
ornamented with human figures. These are probably very 
exceptional cases ; Professor Putnam, who has excavated 
with extreme care numerous sepulchres in Tennessee, is con- 
vinced that the men who rested there were of ordinary 

1 We may remark that amongst prehistoric French races the perforated 
humerus has been thought to belong to another race than that which shows the 
platycnemic tibia and the femur with the sharp edge. " Rev. d' Anth,," 1878, 
P- 514. 

2 Jones : "Explorations of the Aboriginal Remains in Tennessee," " Smith. 
•Cont.," vol. XXII. 

3 Am. Antiquarian, July, 1879. 



THE MEN OF AMERICA. 



497 



stature, and although he often met with tombs made of slabs 
measuring from seven to eight feet long, he always noticed 
a pretty wide space between the head or the feet of the 
dead and the walls of the tomb. 1 We may add that all the 
skeletons found in the numerous stone cists of Madison 
county, Illinois, were of small stature, and that the bones 
were remarkably slender. 2 

We have already described the numerous canons met with 
in New Mexico, Colorado, or Arizona, and the ruins which 
rise wherever the rock has provided space, however limited 
that space may be. We possess few bones of these inde- 
fatigable builders, which is easily explained by the difficul- 
ties attending excavations in a country still uninhabited, and 
where explorers are constantly exposed to danger from the 
Apaches. 

One skull is, however, mentioned from the Chaco Canon, 
New Mexico. Among the ancient alluvial deposits bearing 
witness to arroyos now dried up, fragments of walls and 
foundations testify to the presence of a formerly numerous 
population, anterior perhaps to the arrival of the Cliff Dwell- 
ers. It was in the midst of these deposits, at a depth of 
about fourteen feet, on a heap of broken pottery, that this 
■skull (fig. 214) was found. Probably it had been brought 
down by water, for researches have not resulted in the dis- 
covery of any other human bones. 3 From what period 
must we date it ? With what race must we connect it ? It 
is at present impossible to decide ; we only know that it be- 
longed to a young woman, whose last molar teeth had not 
yet appeared. 

It is asymmetrical, the forehead is low, the orbits are oval 
and slightly prominent. The most curious characteristic is 
the flatness of the back part of the head. This flatness is 
no less marked in the parietal bones, and especially in the 

3 " Report, Peabody Museum,' vol. II., p. 306. 

2 Bandelier : "Report, Am. Assoc.," St. Louis, 1S76. Aehler : "Stone 
Cist near Highland, Madison county, Illinois," 

3 Dr. W. Hoffman: " Report on the Chaco Cranium"; U. S. Geol. and 
( Geog. Survey, Washington, 1S73. 



493 



PRE-HIS TORIC A MER1 CA . 



left parietal. The skull was so completely filled with agglu- 
tinated sand that it had to be broken to get the exact meas- 
urements, so that its capacity has remained undetermined. 

To Dr. Bessels 1 we owe ,a complete description of several 
skulls recently discovered, which may be attributed either to 
the Cliff Dwellers or to the inhabitants of the pueblos. 




Fig. 214 — Skull found in the Chaco Canon, and attributed to the Cliff Dweller. 

Two of them came from an ancient burial-place near 
Abiquico, (New Mexico). Each tomb was surrounded by 
piles of stones, forming now a rectangle, now a circle, and 
near to each body care had been taken to place numerous 
fragments of pottery. The first of these skulls presents a 
very marked flattening of the left parietal, and a less appar- 
ent flattening of the right parietal. The orbits are promi- 
nent, the forehead is not distinguished by any special charac- 
teristic, the lower jaws are massive, and the teeth, especially 
the incisors, slightly worn. The capacity is 1325 c.c. The 
second skull is that of a woman of about seventeen years old ; 
the last molar teeth are beginning to appear, the progna- 
thous character is very much marked. The same flattening 

1 " The human remains found among the ancient ruins of S. W. Colorado^ 
and New Mexico," p. 47. 



THE MEN OF AMERICA. 



499 



is noticed as on the skull just described, only in that of the 
man it is more pronounced on the left side, and in that of 
the woman on the right. The capacity of the latter is very 
small, and does not exceed 1020 c.c. 

A short time afterward Dr. Bessels assisted at the recep- 
tion for the museum of the Smithsonian Institution of 
numerous objects collected from the mounds of Tennessee. 1 
Amongst these objects were two skulls (figs. 210, 211) which 
struck him by their resemblance to those of New Mexico. 
This resemblance is such, he tells us, that it is impossible to 
distinguish them from each other. 

We will not dwell upon the other skulls of the Cliff 
Dwellers ; to do so would be little more than a monotonous 
repetition. In all we note this characteristic depression, now 
more marked on the right, now on the left ; it is certainly 
artificial, and we find it already very marked in the skull of 
a child of ten years old, whose jaw also shows a sensible 
tendency to prognathism. 2 In the skull of a young woman 
occurs a deformation similar to that of the Peruvians. The 
orbits are but little prominent, the forehead is retreating, 
and the teeth are very irregularly set. 

De Quatrefages and Hamy, in discussing these discoveries, 
add that there can be no doubt as to the ethnic identity of 
the Mound Builders and Cliff Dwellers ; which conclusion 
would extend to the builders of the Casas-Grandes of the 
Rio Gila, if all presented the same characteristics as the sub- 
ject exhumed by Pinart, from a tumulus near the Casa- 
Grande of Montezuma. 3 

The top alone of this skull, which now belongs to the 
Paris museum, is preserved. Its cranial index is 90.36. One 
of the skulls sent from Teul presents the same cephalic 
peculiarities, except that it is more flattened from before 
backward, and that the index exceeds 97. 

But although the ethnic characteristics of the Mound 

1 " Congres des Americanistes," Luxembourg, 1877, vol. I., p. 147. 

2 This head is preserved in the Osteological Collection of the U. S. Army.. 
Its capacity is 1213 c.c. 

3 "Crania Ethnica," p. 464. 



500 



PRE-HIS TORIC A M ERICA . 



crania are met with even in distant regions, the type is no 
longer general, according to the learned authors of the 
Crania Ethnica, in the countries they peopled, and they 
assert that among the number of skulls of modern Indians 
preserved in various collections, we find but a few resembling 
those of which we have just spoken. What most clearly 
would result from these facts, were they well authenticated, 
is the rapidity with which anatomical modifications of a sec- 
ondary order might proceed ; hence their small importance 
in fixing with any certainty the characteristics of a race, and 
above all for following successfully the development of these 
characteristics through generations. 

The analogies between the Mound crania and those of the 
ancient inhabitants of Anahuac are no less striking than 
those between the former and the Cliff Dwellers. 1 Four 
skulls from the tombs of Mexico, Otumba, and Tacuba, re- 
produce the type of the inhabitants of North America ; 
others found at Santiago-Tlatelolcoli admit of still less 
doubt. 2 In all we see the flattening of the occiput, the re- 
treating forehead, and massive bones, so common among the 
Mound crania, especially amongst those from the banks of 
the Ohio and Mississippi. 

Amongst the Mayas this flatness, doubtless due to arti- 
ficial pressure, is still more apparent. This is proved by the 
bas-reliefs of Palenque (figs. 123, 124). The pointed heads, 
the retreating foreheads presenting so strange an appearance, 
evidently bear witness to the type most admired among 
them. Recent explorers think they have found this type 
amongst the inferior tribes who dwell in the mountains; but 
it has disappeared, or never existed, among the people who 
erected the monuments of Yucatan and Honduras. The 
sculptures of Chichen-Itza present a type absolutely different 
from the preceding (fig. 135). " The skull is large," says 
Charnay, " flattened at the top, 3 though the forehead does 

1 Morton : " Crania Americana," pi. XIX., XXXI. Quatrefages and Hamy : 
*' Crania Ethnica," p. 466. 

2 These skulls belong to the Paris museum. 

3 " Cites et Ruines Americaines," p. 341. 



THE MEN OF AMERICA. 



501 



not bulge out, but forms with the aquiline nose an almost 
straight line." 

The artificial deformation of skulls amongst the Peruvians 
renders their study very difficult ; this deformation is the re- 
sult of mechanical pressure on the skulls of new-born in- 
fants ; the direction, amount, and duration of this pressure, 
all alike differing according to circumstances. Gosse, in his 
dissertations on the races of Peru, says that three kinds 
of deformation were practised : the occipital, amongst the 
Chinchas, and, perhaps, in the family of the Incas ; the 
elongated symmetrical deformation, amongst the Aymaras ; 
while the cuneiform obtained in several provinces, such 
as that of Chiquito. This last gave to the head a long slope 
from the front to the back. These deformations were still 
practised in 1545, and at that time the council of Lima 
solemnly forbade them under the names of Caito, Opalta, 
and Oma. In five hundred skulls from Peru, the property 
of the Paris museum, scarcely sixty are exempt from this 
deformation. 1 It occurs sometimes from the front toward 
the back, as is the case in nearly all the skulls taken from 
the huacas of Ancon, 2 while sometimes it is circular, giving 
to the head a conical form. This was the custom, the 
fashion if we like to call it so, sought after by the Peruvians 
who inhabited the neighborhood of LakeTiticaca ; this char- 
acteristic occurring in nearly all the skulls from the Chulpas. 3 

As we have already had occasion to remark the cranial 
capacity was very small. In eleven skulls from Ancon, 
which showed no trace of deformation, the average in only 
1 129 c. c, the maximum is but 1260 c. c, and the minimum 
sinks to 1040 c. c. 

In other parts of Peru, as can be seen by the table we 
give, the results obtained are no higher, and at Chimu 
the average sinks even lower. 4 

1 De Quatrefages and Hamy : " Crania Ethnica," p. 474. 

2 "Report, Peabody Museum," 1874, p. 8. 
3<< Report, Peabody Museum," 1876, p. 10. 

4 Squier : " Incidents of Travel and Exploration in the Land of the Incas," 2d 
edition, London, 1878, p. 582. 



502 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 





No. of 
Skulls. 


Maximum 


Minimum. 


Average. 








c. c. 


c. c. 


Chulpas near Lake Titicaca 


6 


1445 


"55 


1292 


Casma ...... 


14 


1455 


1050 


1254 


Amacavilca 


16 


1320 


1055 


II/6 


Chimu . . . . 


7 


1460 


1065 


IO90 


Pachacamac . . . . 


4 


1305 


1035 


"95 


Cajamarquilla ..... 


5 


I4IO 


ii55 


1268 


Truxillo 


4 


1325 


"35 


1286 


Total 


56 


1460 


1035 


1212 



Morton and Meigs give as the average capacity of 
Peruvian skulls measured by them 1230 c. c. ; we have 
above tabulated it at 12 12 c. c. These averages, which do 
not differ sensibly from those of Squier, are very low, 
and do not occur again among any known race. The Peru- 
vian maxima scarcely equal the minima of other people. 
This is a fact, of which we have no satisfactory explana- 
tion. 

Rivero and Tschudi 1 recognize three different races in 
Peru : the Chinchas, occupying the Pacific coast from io° to 
14 0 S. Lat. 2 ; the Aymaras, established on the lofty table- 
lands of Bolivia ; and lastly the Huancas, so named after 
the most powerful tribe amongst them, who lived between 
the Cordillera and the Andes from 9 0 to 14 0 S. Lat. The 
authors of the Antignedades Pernanas do not admit artificial 
deformation except amongst the Chinchas, and pretend that 
amongst the other races it is congenital, and that it exists 
amongst children who have not been subjected to any kind 
of pressure, and even amongst certain foetuses. This iso- 
lated fact would not be a proof, for deformations made on 
the body at the time of the birth, as Gosse observes, may to 
a certain extent be transmitted hereditarily. They become 
permanent when both sexes have been subjected to the 
same deformations to a similar extent, during many succes- 

1 " Antiguedacles Peruanas." 

2 The Chimus, of whom we have spoken in a previous chapter, should be 
classed amongst the Chinchas. Meyer (" Reise urn die Erde ; Beitrage zur 
Zoologie," Bonn, 1834) speaks of them as the primitive inhabitants of Peru. 



THE MEN OF AMERICA. 



503 



■sive generations, on condition that the means employed 
have profoundly modified alike nutrition and the structure 
of the bones. 1 

To the difficulties resulting from deformation which was 
practised by different processes throughout the land of the 
Incas, we have to add, as everywhere else, the incessant 
mixtures of race and type which are met with amongst the 
dead. At the Castillo of the great Chimu, Squier saw 
together regularly-shaped heads, attributed to the Qquich- 
uas, square-shaped skulls, obtained by posterior pressure, 
and elongated skulls (fig. 215), the cephalic characteristics of 
which resemble those 
of Palenque and Co- 
pan, as they are made 
known to us by sculp- 
tures. 

Dr. Wilson 2 admits 
only two distinct 
types. The Peruvians 
of the time of the 
Incas were brachyce- 
phalic and of small 
stature ; they had a 
retreating but very 
lofty forehead and a 
flattened occiput ; their bones were light and delicate, their 
fingers long and tapering. These men must have formed an 
aristocratic class, incapable of fatiguing work. The more 
ancient Peruvians were on the contrary dolichocephalic ; 
their bones are heavy and massive, the attachments robust ; 
everything with them indicates great muscular force. Mor- 
ton confounds these two types, and is of opinion that the 
second sprung from the first, and was obtained by the arti- 
ficial compression to which infants were subjected. 3 But 

1 Gosse, /. c, p. 162, says that the fact appears to be corroborated by modern 
■experiments on domestic animals. 

2 " Prehistoric Man," vol. II., chap. XX., pp. 145, 158, 165, 
* Nott and Gliddon, " Types of Mankind." 




Fig. 215.— Deformed skull, said to be Aymara, 
from the " Crania Ethnica." 



504 



P RE-HI S TOPIC A M ERICA . 



Wilson 1 justly replies to him that skulls artificially deformed 
are always asymmetrical, and that the dolichocephalic skulls 
on the contrary, which are looked upon as normal, are 
always completely regular. They have also peculiar charac- 
teristics: they are, for instance, longer and narrower; the 
upper jaw is extremely prominent; and the teeth, especially 
the incisors, are oblique. 

We do not contest any of these assertions ; we content 
ourselves with repeating what we have already said several 
times, that the existence of different types would not neces- 
sarily imply that of different races ; the causes of the origin 
or of the modifications of types being as yet absolutely un- 
known. 2 

The custom of mummifying human bodies has enabled us 
to make many useful observations. The mummy discovered 
at Chacota, for instance, an illustration of which we repro- 
duce (fig. 179), gives as the length of the humerus nine 
inches, that of the hand five and one half inches, that of the 
middle finger three and one half inches, that of the femur 
thirteen inches, of the tibia twelve inches, of the foot seven 
and a half inches; whilst the width of the hand is only two 
inches, and of the foot two and one half inches. 3 

In accordance with custom, locks of hair were placed by 
friends in the tomb as a last testimony of affection. This 
hair is as fine as that of the Anglo-Saxon races, and the 
faded color generally varies from dark brown to chestnut. 
It was probably originally black. It was the custom to wear 

1 " Few who have had extensive opportunities of minutely examining and 
comparing normal and artificially deformed crania will, I think, be prepared to 
dispute the fact that the latter are rarely, if ever, symmetrical." Wilson, /. c. 

2 Virchow notes the frequent occurrence in Peruvian skulls of an anomaly, 
known under the name of the Inca bone, or the interparietal bone, and asserts 
its recurrence amongst the Indo-Chinese and the Malays of the Philippine 
Isles. According to him, then, it would be characteristic of these races ; but 
Anoutchine, in a recent work (" Rev. d' Anthr.," 1881), has shown that it is also 
met with amongst the negroes. It is doubtless common to individuals among 
all the less developed races. See Gosse, /. c., p. 165, etc. 

3 J. -Blake : " Notes on a Collection from the Ancient Cemetery of the Bay 
of Chocota," "Report, Peabody Museum," 1878, p. 284. 



THE MEN OE AMERICA. 



505 



the hair long, to plait it, and let the plaits hang clown be- 
hind the head. Women added false hair to their plaits, and 
after the lapse of centuries the opening of the tomb has be- 
trayed their vanity. It is only just to add that it was not 
only the woman who thus called art to the aid of nature. 
The dried head of a man of advanced age, for his hair is 
dashed with gray (fig. 216), is covered with little false plaits 
arranged on the forehead. This head, which comes from an 
ancient Peruvian cemetery, presents notable differences from 
others recently discovered. The forehead is lofty, the nose 
prominent, the cheek-bones are high, the incisors are set 
vertically, and the ears are disproportionately distended. 
The hair is now brown, and the plaits hang in tresses, as did 
those of the French hussars of the end of last century. 1 

If we advance further southward, we shall meet with dis- 
tinctly dolichocephalic races, resembling probably the ancient 
races among whom this form has been noticed. The man 
discovered by Ameghinoin the pampas was of small stature, 
and his skull was dolichocephalic. It w r as the same with 
those found by Moreno in the paraderos of Patagonia ; both 
recall the type of the Greenland Eskimo of the present 
time. 

The fossil skull of Lagoa Santa was also dolichocephalic, 
and the learned authors of the " Crania Ethnica " mention 
several other similar skulls discovered in Brazil. The ce- 
phalic index of one of them, which was in a condition for 
measurement, is 70. 

The Botocudos, who are very distinct from the tribes 
surrounding them, and who doubtless represent the most 
ancient races of the country, are also dolicocephalic. 

They are no less remarkable for the height of the skull, 
the prominence of the brows, and the lowness and rectangu- 
lar form of the orbits. In all these respects they present, as 
do the Patagonians, numerous analogies with the Eskimo, 2 



1 Blake, /. c, p. 301. Morton : " Crania Americana," pi. I. 

2 " La raza esquimal diffiere de la masa de la poblacion americana, y con- 
serva una tal homogeneidad que presenta el aspecto de una razo primitiva apenas. 



$o6 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



who inhabit the other extremity of the American continent. 
May we not suppose that both were dispersed and then re- 
treated, little by little, before conquering races, to whom 
they could offer but an inefficacious resistance? This was 
what happened in Europe at the time of the invasion of va- 
rious Asiatic races ; the Basques and Finns were driven to 
the extreme limits of Europe to arid and uncultivated re- 
gions ; and although it is impossible to establish with any 



FlG. 216. — Head of a mummy from an ancient ier inhabitants of the 



The Spaniards brought small-pox with them, which caused 
great havoc amongst the natives, whole tribes having been. 

modificada, por unos que otros cruzamientos. Lo que sobre todo distingue al 
esquimal de todos los demas pueblos de la tierra es su cabeza sumamente 
larga," — Ameghino : " La Antiguedad del Hombre en el Plata," vol. I., p. 163. 
" The Eskimo and the Botocudos are short, the cephalic index (73) is the same ; 
both have prominent cheeks ; small, oblique eyes ; coarse, straight, black hair ; 
large, distended ears ; a flat, round face ; and a tendency to obesity. Even 
the botoque, the strange ornament to which the Botocudos owe their name, 
is met with among the western Eskimo." Bordier, Topinard : "Bull. Soc. 
Anthr.," 1881. 





degree of certainty, 
we are justified in 
supposing that simi- 
lar events may have 
taken place in Ameri- 
ca, and that these 
ancient races, driven 
from the regions they 
first inhabited, were 
the contemporaries 
of the European 
paleolithic people. 
Every thing points 
to the conclusion that 
the most ancient in- 
habitants of America 
were little inferior in 
antiquity to the earl- 



Peruvian sepulchre. 



Old World. 



THE MEN OF AMERICA. 



507 



destroyed by the scourge. They in their turn are supposed 
by some to have received from the Americans a no less 
cruel malady, syphilitic affections destined to blight, if not 
to destroy, the very source of life. 1 This last assertion has 
been hotly contested ; it is alleged that syphilis existed in 
America before the 16th century; did it also exist in 
Europe ? This is a point which has remained very obscure. 
The Chinese historians relate that, 2637 B. C, the Emperor 
Hoang-ty described syphilitic affections in both sexes. But 
this fact, which would prove the existence of syphilis before 
the discovery of America, is very much disputed. Great 
stress has been laid on the Spanish word Buba, which is 
translated by syphilitic affection ; but it remains to be as- 
certained whether this word then had the same signification 
which we give to it now. 2 One thing which is not doubtful 
is that the bones bearing the supposed marks of this malady 
have been found in the stone graves of Tennesee, 3 and that 
traces of a similar kind occurred on other bones 4 from the 
mounds of Iowa, Rock River, Illinois, and those near Nash- 
ville. 5 It is not only in the Central United States that we 
see these indelible traces, and we have already mentioned a 
skull, from the paraderos of Patagonia, on which Broca no- 
ticed traces of inflammatory action which he did not hesi- 
tate to attribute to a syphilitic affection. 

If this diagnosis be correct, however, it may be taken as 
bearing either way ; that is, the interment may have been 
subsequent to the invasion of the whites or the disease pre- 
ceded their establishment in America. 

1 Clavigero: " Storia Antica del MessicO," vol. I., p. 117 ; vol. IV., p. 303. 
Herrera : "Hist. Gen.," dec. II., book CXXXI. Gomera : " Conq. Mex.," 
fo. 148. Sahagun : "Hist. Gen. de las Cosas de Nueva Espana," vol. II., 
t>ook VII., p. 246. Oviedo : " Hist, de las Indias." 

2 Troisieme, "Cong, des Americanistes," Madrid, 1S81 

3 ' ' Several skeletons in these mounds bore unmistakable marks of the ravages 
of syphilis," Jones : " Aboriginal Remains of Tennessee," " Smith. Cont., " vol. 
XXII. 

4 Farquharson : " Proc. Am. Assoc.," Detroit (Michigan), 1875. 
6 Putnam : " Arch. Expl. in Tennessee ; " " Report, Peabody Museum," vol. 
II., p. 305. 



508 



PRE-HISTOKIC AMERICA. 



It is questionable whether these lesions are due to the 
alleged pathological cause ; " Several pathologists who have 
examined these bones unite in stating that they do not prove 
the existence of syphilis, as other diseases not syphilis 
might have such effects " 1 ; but other facts tend to confirm 
the hypothesis. Accounts which have come down to us lead 
us to believe that the Mayas were acquainted with venereal 
affections, and that to cure them they used the bark of a 
. tree called Guayacan, native to Nicaragua. 2 It is alleged 
that in the ancient languages of America there are words 
relating to these maladies, the origin of which the natives, 
by a grotesque fancy, ascribed to one of their gods, Nan- 
huatl, who is said to have been the first to infect the human 
race with this disease. 3 At all events, there is no a priori 
reason why such a disease may not have been common to 
the whole human race from a very early period. Other 
diseases of the bones, though of less frequent occurrence, 
were not unknown. Dr. Farquharson describes a curious 
affection of the cervical vertebrae, which appears to have 
been cured. Recovery from this lesion was rare and very 
tedious, requiring a long time and constant care. These 
people then lived in societies, and did not abandon those 
belonging to them who were afflicted by sore infirmities. 
Several skulls of Tennessee bear traces of ancient inflamma- 
tions 4 ; old anchyloses have also been noted on long bones. 
Dall collected at a pre-historic village site in the Aleutian 
Islands, a skeleton of which the entire vertebral column 
was anchylosed as a sequel to some severe affection ; 
so that the individual must have lived for years in a 
crouching posture. This skeleton is now in the Army Medi- 
cal Museum at Washington. 

Neither were hurts resulting from traumatic causes rare. 

1 Putnam : " Rep., Peabody Museum," vol. II., p. 316. 

2 Dr. Bruhl {Cincinnati Lancetand Clinic, May 29, 1880) speaks of the syphi- 
litic remedies, known to the inhabitants of Central America and Peru. 

8 Brasseur : " Hist, des Nations civilisees," vol. I., p. 181. 
4 L. Carr : " Observations on the Crania from the Stone Graves of Tennes- 
see ; " "Peabody Museum Report," vol. II., p. 3S1. 



THE MEN OF AMERICA. 



The Peabody Museum contains two Peruvian skulls collected 
by Agassiz, which deserve to be mentioned. One of them 
has a fracture five centimetres long by three broad and 
eighty-four millimetres deep. The work of repair is very 
visible, and four fragments of the bony structure have again 
become united. The other skull, which belonged to an 
adult, has a long fracture on the forehead, eleven centimetres 
long by five broad, which was doubtless produced by a 
violent blow from a club. Here, too, the five or six frag- 
ments that can still be made out had united. In both cases 
the wounded had probably lived for many years after their 
injury ; they had triumphed by the strength of their consti- 
tution, for there are no traces of any surgical operation, such 
as the removal of pieces of bone. 1 

It was not always thus. On another skull, also belonging 
to the remarkable collection of the Peabody Museum, a per- 
foration can be seen, probably attempted as a mode of heal- 
ing an inflammation of the cranium, the trace of which is 
very apparent, and Squier speaks 2 of a Peruvian skull (fig. 
217), found in a cemetery of the Yucay valley, in which a 
piece seems to have been taken out by means of four regular 
incisions. The opening measures one hundred and seventy- 
seven by one hundred and forty-six millimetres. Here, too, 
the bones show traces of an ancient inflammation, and some 
eminent surgeons, such as Nelaton and Broca, have not hesi- 
tated to attribute this perforation to an operation attempted 
during life. 

We must not confound these operations with the post- 
humous trepannings 3 of frequent occurrence in some parts 
of America. 

We know nothing certain about the reason for these tre- 
pannings ; whether they were a mark of honor, a religious 

1 Wyman : " Report, Peabody Museum," 1874, p. 10. 

2 Squier : " Incidents of Travel and Exploration in the Land of the Incas," 
p. 457, appendix A. 

3 Am. Assoc., Detroit, 1875. H. Gillman : "Add. Facts Concerning 
Artificial Perforation of the Cranium in Ancient Mounds in Michigan," Am. 
Assoc., Nashville, 1887. 



5io 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA, 



rite, or were made to let out the brain, or for hanging up the 
head, or were intended to allow the soul to revisit the body 
that it had inhabited. All these hypotheses are possible ; 
none of them can be proved. Excavations in a mound of 
an irregular conical form, from ten to fifteen feet high, have 
brought to light five skeletons buried standing ; a sixth lay 
in the centre of the tumulus, evidently occupying the place 
of honor ; all alike had a similar perforation in the skull. 



centimetres in diameter, and usually occur at the sagittal su- 
ture, 2 generally at the point of j unction with the coronal suture. 
They were obtained by means of an instrument, probably a 
pointed stone drill, which was turned round rapidly. We 
have noticed 3 these perforations in Europe, especially in 
France, where they have been so completely discussed by 

1 Broca : " Rev. d' Anth.," 1876, p. 435. 

2 The sagittal suture unites the two parietal bones, and stretches from before 
backward along the median line. The coronal suture extends from one tem- 
poral bone to the other, above the crown, uniting the frontal to the parietal 
bone. 

3 " Les Premiers Hommes," vol. II., p. 218 et seq. 





FlG. 217. — Trepanned Peruvian skull. 



Trepanned skulls have 
also been taken from a 
mound near Sable River, 
and from the large tu- 
mulus of the Red River, 
of which we have al- 
ready spoken ; but the 
perforations are gener- 
ally smaller than those 
of the skulls from other 
mounds. The trepan- 
nings of Michigan, 
about which we have 
more complete details, 
were always made after 
death, and only on 
adults of the male sex 1 ; 
they are from one to two 



THE MEAT OF AMERICA. 



511 



Broca. 1 They were often surgical, and made upon the skull 
of the living (fig. 218). Every age and both sexes were sub- 
ject to them. Their position, form, and length varied 
according to the wound or the nature of the malady they 
were supposed to relieve. Comparison between them and 
American trepannings is, therefore, difficult. A circular 
cranial perforation has also been mentioned in an American 
cranium, in every respect similar to those found in France 
by Dr. Prunieres, but the discovery is thus far unique. 

We must recur again to curious artificial deformation of 
the skull, of frequent occurrence in the north and south of 
the American conti- 
nent. At the time of 
the Spanish conquest 
the greater n u m - 
ber of the natives, 
especially those in- 
habiting the coasts of 
the Pacific, retained 
their ancient habit of 
compressing the head 
of their infants at the 
time of their birth. 2 

The most recent of ^ IG " 2I ^* — Perforated skull from the de Baye 

collection. 

these deformations, 

most fashionable, if we may use such a word, was the flat- 
tening of the forehead, so that the head is widened at the 
side, and looks as though displaced backward, the angle of 
inclination varying. There were yet others ; at the first 
Congres des Americanistes, held at Nancy, in 1875, were 
shown successively an Aymara skull from Bolivia, lengthened 

1 " Memoire lu en 1876 au Congres de Buda-Pest," " Rev. d' Anth.," 1877. 

2 Wilson : "Prehistoric Man," vol. II., chap. XXI. Jones: "Ant. of 
Tennessee," " Smith. Cont.," 1876. Catlin : " North American Indians," vol. 
II., p. 40. Bancroft: "The Native Races," vol. I., II., and IV. Dr. 
Moreno (" Rev. d'Anth.," 1874,) has obtained in the cemeteries of Patagonia 
forty-five skulls of ancient Tehuelches, eighteen presenting a very marked de- 
formation. 




'512 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



to a point ; another of the same origin of cylindrical form ; 
an Indian skull flattened from before backward so as to 
give the forehead huge dimensions ; and, lastly, Patagonian 
skulls, one of which had been subjected to such pressure in 
the middle of the head that it presented a two-lobed appear- 
.ance. 

This custom dates from the most ancient races who peo- 
pled the country ; nearly all the Mound skulls thus far 
discovered have the occiput flattened ; but with them the 
deformation is, perhaps, of less exaggerated character than 
amongst the American races. Many of these deformations 
may be attributed to posthumous causes, such as the pres- 
sure of the earth upon the bones softened by moisture. 
Under one of the mounds of Utah, in the centre of that 
country which a few years ago was an absolutely unknown 
desert, a skull has been obtained showing a considerable 
artificial depression. 1 This deformation was practised among 
all the Maya races ; the representations of the human form 
found in Chiapas, Honduras, and Yucatan, leave no doubt 
on this point (figs. 123, 124, 126, 128). The skulls taken by 
Dr. Flint from the caves of Nicaragua have also a very 
marked frontal depression.' 2 The origin of this custom is 
unknown ; but it is stated to have been introduced among 
men by the gods themselves. The idols all have curiously 
flattened heads. Recent excavations near Vera Cruz have 
brought to light some earthenware statuettes, in which this 
same deformation occurs, and which, according to the custom 
among Mexicans of the ruling class, have a pointed beard on 
the chin. 

The means employed varied greatly. Sometimes the de- 
formations were obtained by means of planks fastened on 
the head of the child. Our illustration (fig. 219) shows the 
martyrdom inflicted on these little creatures, which lasted 
eight or ten months, but apparently did not inflict much 
pain. We may reasonably suppose, from the shape of the 

1 " Report, Peabody Museum," 1871, vol. II., p. 199. 
- "Report, Peabody Museum," 1880, vol. II., p. 716. 



THE MEN OF AMERICA. 



513 



mother's head, that she wished to make that of her child 
like it. 

In other cases bandages were wound round the head 
of the new-born. The Choctaws 1 used a little bag of sand, 
on which the head rested constantly. 2 The Mosquitos 
placed a plank on the skull of their infants as soon as they 
were a month old, and they increased the pressure until the 
result obtained was satisfactory. In Yucatan, four or five 
days after its birth 
the child was laid 
upon its stomach, and 
the head placed be- 
tween two planks ; 
one pressed the fore- 
head and the other 
the occiput ; and this 
position, which ap- 
pears so cruel, was 
maintained without 
change for a consid- 
erable time. 3 

These grotesque 
customs do not ap- 
pear to have injured 
either the health or 
the intelligence, nor Fig. 219.— Artificial deformation practised on 
should they surprise a child ' 

us, for we meet with them on every page of ethnic history. 
Hippocrates 4 speaks of a macrocephalic tribe living near 

1 Among the Choctaws, as among the Aymaras, cranial deformation was ex- 
clusively reserved for male infants. 

2 Adair : " Hist, of the American Indians," p. 284. 

3 Oviedo y Valdes : "Hist. Gen. y Nat. de las Indias," Madrid, 1851-4, 
vol. IV., p. 54. Herrera : " Hist. Gen. de los Hechos de los Castellanos en 
las Islas i Tierra Firme del mar Oceano,"dec. III., book IV., chap. VII. ; 
Dec. X., book X., chap. III., Madrid, 1601. Squier : " Nicaragua," New 
York, i860, vol. II., p. 341. Landa : " Relacion de las Cosas de Yucatan," 
Paris, 1864, pp. 114, 180, 194. 

4 " De Aeris, Aquis, et Locis." 




5H 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



Palus Moeotis among whom the parents, at the birth of a. 
child, endeavored to give an elongated form to the head ; 
Strabo 1 mentions an Asiatic people among whom the fore- 
head was forced out beyond the line of the chin by arti- 
ficial means. Blumenbach saw a skull with this depression 
taken from a tumulus in the Crimea ; another exactly 
similar was found near Kertch, so that it was a general 
practice. Such, too, was the custom of the Mongolian; 
Avari, 2 if, as we suppose, we may attribute to them either 
the skulls of Grafenegg and Atzgerrsdorf near Vienna, or 
others discovered in various parts of Germany and Switzer- 
land, in which the same deformation occurs. A medal 
struck in honor of Attila, 452 A. D., bears the bust of the 
" Scourge of God," in which the head is visibly depressed. 
A skull thus deformed, belonging to a skeleton of very great 
stature, has been found near the gate of Damascus at Jeru- 
salem. 3 Dr. Meigs recognized that the form was due to- 
pressure exercised during infancy. This artificial modifica- 
tion of the head also existed among the Caledonians, Scan- 
dinavians, 4 and Anglo-Saxons of the most remote ages. 5 It 
exists in our own day in a great many of the islands of 
Oceanica. The shape of the head is even a means of recog- 
nizing the islanders, for the people of different islands have 
peculiar customs, transmitted from their ancestors and 
formerly religiously observed. Among the Flatheads it 
was an aristocratic privilege, and neither slaves nor men 
of inferior condition were allowed to adopt it for their 
children. 

But without going so far, we still meet with this cus~ 

lu Geographia," book I., chap. XIX. 

2 Retzius in noting the constant deformation amongst the Mongols pretends, j \ 
that it was introduced into America by Asiatic emigrants. " Archives des Sci- I 
ence Naturelles," Geneva, i860. "Smiths. Report," 1859, P- 2 7°- 

3 This skull is now part of the collections of the Academy of Natural Sciences. , 
at Philadelphia. " Description of a Deformed Fragmentary Skull in an 
Ancient Quarry Cave at Jerusalem," "Trans, of Philadelphia Acad, of Nat., 
Sciences," 1859. 

4 Gosse : " Essai sur les deformations artificielles du crane," p. 72. 
5 Thurman: " Crania Britannica," p. 38. 



THE MEN OE AMERICA. 



515 



torn, at the present day in some parts of France, where it is 
known under the name of deformation toiiiousaine. It is 
obtained by pressing the head of the new-born with band- 
ages. In the department of Deux-Sevres there is a mode of 
compression different from the deformation toulousaine, and 
other examples might be given of such local customs. It 
is curious to find a practice, which at first sight appears 
so strange, existing amongst the ancient races of Europe, 
recurring among Asiatics, as well as among the most 
ancient inhabitants of America, perpetuating itself not only 
among the Indians, 1 or the wild islanders of Polynesia, but 
also amongst the most civilized races of Europe. This 
similarity between the most different races, even in the 
most grotesque practices, is a fact of deep significance, 
worthy of the consideration of all who are interested in the 
study of humanity. 

One question has been raised. Was this depression 
always voluntary, or was it often the result of a method em- 
ployed to hold or to fasten the new-born? 2 Garcilasso de 
la Vega 3 relates that amongst the Peruvians the child was 
always laid in a wooden frame, furnished with plaited cords, 
to which he was fastened in such a manner as to check all 
his movements ; he was never taken out of this bed, even to 
give him the breast, which was done regularly three times a 
day. Was the flattening of the skull the result of this, and 
involuntary ? This is scarcely probable, and it seems certain 
that these people thought to add to their beauty by such 
deformations. 

Others have gone further, and look upon it as a congenital 
peculiarity. " I am not afraid to assert," said Robertson, at 

1 Hence the name of Elat heads given to certain Indians of Northwest 
America. Compression was probably once a general custom among many 
Indians of the northwest, especially those of Vancouver's Island, the Quatsinos 
and Tsimpsians, where the perfect form appears to be that of the sugar loaf, the 
Chinooks, Sahaptins, etc. Amongst the Indians of the southern United States, 
we may mention the Choctaws and Catawbas. 

2 Con ant : " Footprints of Vanished Races," p. 102 

3 " Hist, des Incas, rois de Perou," chap. XII,, Paris, 1744. 



5 i6 



PRE- HIS TORIC A M ERICA . 



the Congres des Americanistes, 1 " that the flattening is the 
result not of an artificial compression, but of a law of na- 
ture." This is entirely an error, contradicting alike physi- 
ological laws and historical facts ; it would scarcely deserve 
mention, if we were not determined to place before our 
readers all the hypotheses which have been put in circula- 
tion, however unfounded they may appear. 

We have now given a summary of the existing informa- 
tion in regard to the human bones found in America, and 
which are supposed to date from pre-historic times. What 
conclusions may we draw from these discoveries? What 
general laws are we justified in evolving from them ? One 
primary conclusion naturally presents itself. The American, 
no matter how remote the antiquity to which he may be as- 
signed, hardly differs from the men who now inhabit the 
shores of the Atlantic and Pacific. The fauna and the flora 
are changed ; climatic and biological conditions have under- 
gone profound modifications ; man alone if not entirely un- 
changed has )^et remained without serious differences, simi- 
lar in his bony framework, similar in his physique and in his 
pathological affections. Everywhere he has had to submit 
to the stern laws of life, he has gone through the same 
struggles, and where possible he has been led to similar pro- 
gress. A second conclusion is no less important. Between 
the men of the New World and those of the Old there ex- 
ists no essential physical difference. The unity of the 
human race stands out as the great law dominating the 
history of humanity. 

Doubtless, as with the ancient races of Europe, those of 
America were made up of diverse elements, of different 
varieties. 2 A primeval dolichocephalic race appears in the 
first instance to have invaded the vast regions included be- 
tween the two oceans. The men of this race were con- 
temporary with the huge pachydermal and edentate ani- 
mals ; and, as did their contemporaries in Europe, they 

1 " Les Mound Builders," 1877, p. 34. 
"Bordier : " Bull. Soc. Anth.," January, 1881. 



THE MEN OF AMERICA. 



517 



passed through the various phases of the Stone Age. Other 
races arrived in successive migrations, the first of which 
doubtless dated from very remote ages, 1 and brought about, 
amongst the ancient inhabitants of America, modifications, 
analogous to those produced in Europe by similar migra- 
tions. 

Doubtless many points still remain obscure and insoluble ; 
whichever side man turns, it has been said, 2 whether he 
looks into the past or into the future, whether he scrutinizes 
the sidereal universe or interrogates the vestiges and muti- 
lated documents of the history of life on this planet, if he 
wishes to start from some settled or assured point, if he 
seeks an immovable foundation, a corner-stone, he will not 
find it. We readily endorse these words ; man by his un- 
aided powers will never be able to solve the great questions 
of our origin and our end, of primary or of final causes. 
The intelligence of Man, however admirable it may be 
shown to be by the ceaseless progress of humanity, is limited. 
The infinite stretches before him ; man is unable to grasp it. 

1 " Hence we find Mound skulls with this ancient form, associated with 
others of more modern type. The discovery of these skulls, with characteristics 
so much like those of the most ancient of the pre-historic type of Europe, would 
seem to indicate that if America was peopled by emigration from the Old 
World, that event must have taken place at a very early time, far back of any 
of which we have any record." "Letter of Dr. Lapham to Dr. Foster," 
Conant, I.e., p. 10S. 

2 J. Soury : " Int. a l'Hist. des Protistes de Haeckel," p. 6. 



CHAPTER X. 



THE ORIGIN OF MAN IN AMERICA. 

In the preceding pages 1 we have reviewed the existing 
knowledge of ancient man in America. His temples, fort- 
resses, dwellings, monuments, agricultural and hydraulic 
works, his personal characteristics, and even the relics of his 
dinners have been described in detail. This task being 
ended the inevitable question presents itself : Who and 
whence was this primitive man ? Was he original to the soil 
of the New World? If not, how did he reach it, and what 
was the cradle of his race ? 

It may be stated at the outset that our knowledge of 
primitive man in America suffices only to decide that he 
existed here, in a state of the lowest barbarism and but little 
elevated above the brutes, at an exceedingly distant epoch. 
While in this condition he has left his traces over both 
Americas, and that at a time which was probably contem- 
poraneous with the existence of the mammoth [elephas) if 
not with its perhaps somewhat older relative, the mastodon. 

That this primitive man was not original to America is 
probable on biological grounds. With those who believe 
in the spontaneous generation of large, highly organized 
mammals out of inorganic material, we have no argument. 
Those who accept the results of science, believing that the 
present lawful sequence of organic nature is at once an 
exemplar and epitome of the progress of nature in the past, 
and that the methods of the Author of nature are best com- 
prehended by studying them and their results,— will better 
comprehend the weight of the reasoning by which we are 



1 For the present chapter the American editor is chiefly responsible. 



THE ORIGIN OF MAN IN AMERICA. 



519 



led to decide against the existence of autochthonous man in 
the New World. 

The naturalist thus far has met with no traces of the 
higher anthropoid animals in America either recent or 
fossil. The American monkeys, it is admitted, are of a rela- 
tively low structural rank. 

On the other hand in various parts of the Old World, 
•especially in Africa and some of the Asiatic islands, anthro- 
poid animals approximating much more nearly to man in 
physical structure are well known to exist. The fossil remains 
of anthropoids of a tolerably advanced type are also more 
numerous, though these fossils are of such a nature, and the 
region possesses such climatic features, as to render their 
preservation at all rather a happy accident than an occur- 
rence to be confidently anticipated. The insanitary and 
tropical character of the countries mentioned is also a serious 
obstacle in the way of geological research and the collection 
of fossil remains which might be happily preserved in 
later formations. 

No biologist of standing, we believe, would affirm that the 
physical structure of primitive man was developed from that 
of the anthropoid animals now in existence, or now known 
to have existed. But, other things being equal, it is prob- 
able that such a physical structure would find more favor- 
able opportunities for its evolution in a region favorable 
to the evolution of allied types ; such as the countries re- 
ferred to are proved to be, not only by the actual occur- 
rence of such types, but by the climate and eatable products 
which would serve as sustenance. 

What changes in the area of land and water have taken 
place since the progenitors of man appeared upon the earth 
we do not know, and any hypothesis must take this un- 
certainty into account, But judging from the facts as 
known to us we are justified in deciding against the prob- 
ability of an American origin for the human race. 

Excavations in the middens and shell-heaps of all parts of 
the world indicate that man, at an epoch when his culture 



520 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



was of the lowest, had already extended his geographical 
range over an immense area. It is impossible to fix a date 
for this extension of the race or to apply any other than 
an approximate geological chronology to the period of his 
wanderings and his conflicts with the cave bear, the reindeer, 
and the mammoth. 

It must also be remembered that the duration of the state 
of culture we refer to was very unequal in different regions 
and probably with different races or geographical assem- 
blages of men. To this day in the remote corners of the 
earth it still persists and doubtless is not very different from 
that which characterized the progenitors of the Aryan race 
before the earliest dawn of civilization anywhere. It is 
notable that this persistence of savagery goes hand in hand 
with an inhospitable environment. We find it in the bleak 
and icy deserts of the north ; in the famine-stricken wilds of 
Tierra Fuego, where the struggle for mere existence is so 
bitter that unproductive members of the community are 
promptly swept away by cannibalism ; and on the arid sands 
of Australia, where the most extraordinary devices to secure 
infertility in most of the male members of a band, have been 
resorted to in the attempt to repress population within 
limits approximated to the supply of food. 

From this fact we may suppose that among those men 
gifted with a tendency to progress, such of them as found 
themselves in a hospitable environment would tend to 
advance in culture. On the contrary, those who had to 
struggle for a bare existence and live in a constant state 
of reaction from their surroundings, would find no time 
for culture except that directly applicable to their sus- 
tenance, and would be more likely to spend an occasional 
breathing-spell in idleness or sensual pleasure than in in- 
ventive or aesthetic work. For all, in their early stages of 
culture, long enduring, intense labor was the price of every 
thing. 

At first lawless, hardly even social, chiefs and leaders, 
except as heads of families, were unknown. Religious 



THE ORIGIN OF MAN IN AMERICA. 521' 



ideas at this stage could hardly exist ; the family turned 
to its leader as the herd turns to the sturdiest bull ; a 
crude and unthinking materialism born of man's relation as 
a preying animal to the world about him considered as a 
source of supply, with occasional irrational stampedes, as of 
wild horses, from sudden alarms begotten of unfamiliar 
phenomena ; a terror of the darkness, of the swift torrent, of 
the falling tree or avalanche ; rage, jealousy, fear ; the pair- 
ing instinct ; gluttony ; — these, and such as these, were the 
lights and shades in the mental radiations of the savage 
brain. Progress from the real or formalized family to the 
band or clan, and so upward, would follow ; its phases have 
been classified by the lamented Morgan and many others. 
Too often, however, the view of savagery has been sub- 
jected to a strange refraction in penetrating the haze of a 
later culture which surrounds the observer. Only in these 
last days are we come to recognize, even now but dimly, the 
primitive savage in his lair. As man developed culture he 
was perhaps more successful, more physically comfortable, 
but not more happy. It may be said that physical comfort, 
a full belly, and a warm, well-tanned robe, is the highest 
happiness of a savage. We think this might have been true 
for the primitive savage, who was not comfortable, but not 
for his successor who had begun to think and to dream. A 
mole is probably happier than a fox, either of them than the 
primitive man who had begun to question nature. 

The primitive man was a slave to nature, in continual 
terror before dangers which he did not understand and could 
not guard against. 1 Nature to him was an appalling mys- 
tery out of whose bowels any thing might issue. He lived in 
a haze of fetichism. Not a leaf might flutter, not a rabbit 
cross the path, no distant thunder roll, or raven croak un- 
seen, but heralded to him some spirit only too malign. 

Those who have observed in a distant camp or remote 
village of savages the midnight alarms, the whispered fears, 
the wild unfounded rumors, the cowering before the most 



1 Prof. W. G. Sumner : " North American Review," June, 1884. 



522 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



simple physical phenomena if only unfrequent, — only those 
can have a realizing sense of the horrors nature enfolds for 
the ignorant yet thinking savage. But it is not our purpose 
to trace the stages of mental culture, a task for which the 
material is yet imperfect ; though glimmerings of the truth 
have lately broken through the mists of misconception which 
have so long prevailed. 

For the purpose of the conservative ethnologist, desiring 
to give to the public a general view of what is known or 
surmised with a degree of probability on this difficult topic, 
it will suffice if we allude to the physical characteristics of 
the different pathways to the American continent, to the 
indications of successive waves of migration in America and 
their lines of march ; and briefly refer, as a matter of curi- 
osity, to the myths of origin of some American tribes ; and, 
as a warning to the enthusiast, to some of the preposterous 
and unscientific hypotheses which men of good literary 
standing, but without sound anthropological training, have 
adopted and disseminated. 

The physical characteristics of the American aborigines 
are generally admitted to point toward affinities with people 
belonging to the Pacific region, rather than with those bor- 
dering the opposite coasts of the Atlantic basin. The 
nomads and fishermen of Siberia are more like hyperboreans 
than any existing European people, and certain features re- 
call the Melanesian inhabitants of the Pacific islands rather 
than the African negro races. 

The approximation of Asia and America at Bering Strait 
lends probability to this hypothesis on the north, and the 
prevalent winds and currents together with the distribution 
of islands, help it on the south. It has been shown 1 that 
the route to America via Bering Strait is feasible (though 
that so often referred to, via the Aleutian Islands, is not), 
and in glacial times if the shallow waters near the strait 
were, as there is some reason to suppose, filled with grounded 

1 Contributions to "North American Ethnology," vol. I., Washington, 1877, 

..pp. 95-98. 



THE ORIGIN OF MAN IN AMERICA. 



523 



ice, there is no reason why people like the Eskimo of the 
present day, or even lower in the scale, might, not make 
their way along this temporary bridge and subsist on the 
marine animals which probably swarmed along its borders. 

On the other hand, a knowledge of navigation no better 
than that possessed at present by the lowest people of Me- 
lanesia would have enabled a migration on the line of the 
thirtieth parallel, south, to reach the coast of South America 
and, in time, to give it a considerable population. A differ- 
ent distribution of land and water from that at present ex- 
isting, is a possible factor in the problem, but of which it is 
too early in ocean exploration to avail ourselves. 

Squier, Gibbs, and numerous other American ethnologists 
believed in a migration from the west to South America. 
A northern migration is almost universally considered to 
have taken place. Probably the American races entered by 
both gates. 

Of their spread afterward it is impossible to speak with 
confidence, except as to the fact that they did spread over 
both Americas while in a very low stage of culture. This is 
undeniable. More than this it is likely will-never be certain. 
That the nations of to-day which now populate the western 
shores of the Pacific and many of its islands were, either in 
physique or culture, the same as we know them is as little 
likely as that the original invaders of America had the 
culture of the Aztecs or the physique of the Apaches. To 
say then that the Americans are derived from the Chinese, 
the Japanese, the Malays or the Polynesians, is highly un- 
scientific and inaccurate. Theoretically it is probable that 
the language, the physique, the social and religious culture, 
and the geographical distribution of all these peoples, have 
undergone radical changes since that early time, and that 
since their present stages or any approximation to them 
have been attained, migration to America has not been in 
progress. 

That successive waves of migration occurred there is no 
reason to doubt, and that these successive bodies of immi- 



524 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



grants differed to some extent in culture and in race is 
highly probable, but that the distinctively American culture 
which may be traced from the shell-heap to the mound, 
from the mound to the pueblo, from the pueblo to the 
structures of Mexico, Central America, and Peru, irrespec- 
tive of race, — that this is indebted to an equivalent foreign 
culture for its chief features, is utterly incapable of proof in 
fact and highly improbable in theory. 

That, irrespective of race as indicated by physical and 
linguistic characteristics, certain distinctive items of culture 
have spread over wide geographical areas in America, has 
lately been sufficiently shown, 1 and it is highly probable that 
something similar will prove to be true of many more. 
From the nature of the human mind and the natural direc- 
tion of its evolution, follow very similar results up to a cer- 
tain more or less advanced stage in all parts of the world. 
At that stage, wherever it may differentiate itself in the nor- 
mal line of progress, begin those features which character- 
ize a stock or race as opposed to man in general. Color was 
probably the first feature to become distinctive, other modi- 
fications of physique in turn responded to the environment, 
and this process can hardly be said to have ceased even 
among the most civilized races. It is a normal natural pro- 
cess, such as might be traced among the brutes. But when 
man's mental powers had reached a point when he could 
look to posterity as well as ancestry, when he could crystal- 
lize his ideas in stone to convey his methods and memory 
to future generations, then a new category of facts by which 
he might be classified, arose, and by these is he most truly- 
differentiated. 

The ordinary idea of race is a consensus of facts relating 
to the two categories, and as a means of classification more 
or less confusing, although at present the best we have. 
That a better will be found eventually there is little doubt. 

1 "On masks, labrets, and certain aboriginal customs, with an enquiry into 
the bearing of their geographical distribution" Third annual report, Bureau 
of Ethnology, 8° Washington, 1884. 



THE ORIGIN OF MAN IN AMERICA. 



525 



The origins of language belong to the first category, its 
final differentiations to the second. By the introduction of 
writing, different languages have been petrified, so to speak, 
in various stages more or less mature. 

By the physical category, America gives evidences of 
many races, not to mention innumerable linguistic stocks; by 
the mental category a much greater degree of unity is indi- 
cated, as we think will be evident to those who have fol- 
lowed the author through the preceding pages. It will be 
still more plain to those who have kept abreast of the recent 
wonderful progress in the essentials of American anthro- 
pology, too recent, too extensive, and still in part too tenta- 
tive, to be summarized here. 

Attention has been frequently called in the preceding 
pages to the similar manner in which similar needs were met, 
similar artistic ideas developed, and similar results attained 
by people in widely separated parts of the globe. That 
from these similarities, no special homologies can be drawn, 
is a fundamental canon of scientific anthropology, from the 
neglect of which science has suffered much. That these 
facts testify to the fundamental unity of the human race and 
to the analogous processes of evolution through which dis- 
tinct communities have reached a higher plane of culture is 
generally admitted, but in the absence of connecting links 
their significance goes no farther. 

That these analogies should be found, not merely in the 
material products of the man's hands and brain, but also be- 
tween his conceptions, legends, and myths, is not surprising 
or unexpected. From many such cases the following instances 
are selected with the caution that for them Ave are depend- 
ent upon writers not always free from mental bias, and who 
often derived their information from individuals who had 
been subjected to missionary teaching, and were more or 
less familiar with the myths and legends of the superior race. 
Notwithstanding these disadvantages, it will be seen that a 
general belief, for instance, in a deluge or flood is widely 
spread among American races, and can hardly be attributed 
to Christian teaching. - 



526 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



Ixtlilxochitl, the Christian descendant of the ancient 
rulers of Anahuac, relates that after the dispersion of the 
human race which succeeded the attempt at building the 
Tower of Babel (which he had learned from his Catholic in- 
structors), seven Toltecs reached America, and became the 
parents of a numerous race. The Qquiches speak of white 
men who came from the land of the sun. 1 The people of " 
Yucatan believed that their ancestors had come from the 
East, across a great body of water that God had dried up to 
let them pass over. 

From the East, too, came Zamna, the disciple and emula- 
tor of Votan, and Cukulcan, the founder of Chichen-Itza, 
probably the same person as Quetzacoatl. 2 Both preached 
celibacy and asceticism to the people of Yucatan, and were 
claimed to be the initiators of their culture. At their death 
the grateful people erected temples to them, and adored 
them as gods. 3 

There are also some interesting traditions amongst the In- 
dians. The Shawnees are said to have claimed that the an- 
cient inhabitants of Florida were white, and that when they 
arrived in the country they found there buildings and cus- 
toms, with a civilization very unlike their own. The Natchez 
believed that they received their religion and their laws from 
a man and woman sent by the sun. 4 The Tuscaroras are 
said to possess a legendary chronology going back nearly 
three thousand years ; according to them, their fathers were 
natives of the extreme north, of districts far beyond the 
Great Lakes; they established themselves upon the St. 
Lawrence ; a strange people came by sea, and long and 
bloody wars ensued between them and the new arrivals. It 
is probable that all these traditions have some foundation in 
truth. 

1 Brasseur de Bourbourg : "Hist, des nations civilisees du Mexique et de 
l'Amerique Centrale," vol. I., pp. 105, 106, 166. 

2 Cukulcan and Quetzacoatl both signify the serpent covered with feathers. 

* Landa : " Relacion de las Cosas de Yucatan," p. 28. Herrara : "Hist. 
Gen. de los Castellanos en las Islas i Tierra Firme del Mar Oceano," dec. IV., 
book IV., chap. II. Cogolludo : " Hist, de Yucatan," p. 178. 

4 Du Pratz : "Hist, of Louisiana," vol. II., p. 175, London, 1703. 



THE ORIGIN OF MAN IN AMERICA. 



527 



111 South America we also find accounts which attribute 
the origin of the people, or at least that of their civilization, 
to strangers. The Peruvians attribute their progress to 
Manco-Capac and to the beautiful Mama-CEllo, his sister 
and his wife, who had crossed the sea to their country. 1 In 
another part of Peru it was believed that three eggs had 
fallen from the sky ; the first was of gold, the second of 
silver, the third of copper. From the first sprang the 
curacas or chiefs, from the second the nobles, and from the 
third the people. 2 Another tradition relates that a white 
man, wearing a long beard, had taught the inhabitants the 
art of building houses and sowing seeds, after which he dis- 
appeared, to live for two thousand years in retreat before re- 
appearing upon the earth. 

The Guaranis relate that two brothers, Tupi and Guarani, 
landed on the shores of Brazil after a great flood, with their 
women and children, and it is from them that sprung 
the races bearing their names. 3 

Other traditions allude to convulsions of nature, to inun- 
dations, and profound disturbances, to terrible deluges, 
in the midst of which mountains and volcanoes suddenly 
rose up. Some of these legends relate to a universal flood, 
a myth " spread throughout the New World, from one pole, 
so to speak, to the other." 4 

We reproduce as nearly as possible the naive account 
given by Bishop Landa. 5 "The water" he says " then 
became swollen, and there was a great inundation, which 
reached to the top of the heads of the inhabitants ; they were 
covered with water, and a thick resin came down from 

^quier: "Peru, Incidents of Travel and Exploration in the Land of 
the Incas." 

2 Avendano : " Serm.," IX., p. 100. Desjardins : " Le Perou avant la con- 
quete Espagnole," p. 29. 

"Guevara: "Hist, del Paraguay, en la col. Hist. Argentina," vol. I., 
p. 76- 

4 D'Eichtal : " Etudes sur les origines Bouddhiques," 1st part, p. 65. 
5 " Relacion de las Cosas de Yucatan." Diego de Landa, a Franciscan monk, 
of the house of Calderon, was the second bishop of Merida. 



528 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



the sky. The face of the earth was darkened, and a black 
rain began ; rain by day, rain by night, and there was a 
great noise above their heads. Then were seen men running 
and pushing each other ; filled with despair, they wanted 
to climb the trees and the trees flung them far from them ; 
they wanted to enter the caves and the caves fell in before 
them." 

The Chimalpopoca Codex 1 also gives an account of a del- 
uge, in which men perished, and were changed into fish. In 
one day the earth disappeared ; the loftiest mountains were 
covered with water, and remained beneath the billows for a 
whole spring. But before this disaster, Titlahuacan, one of 
the Nahua gods, often called Tezcatlipoca, had called Nata 
and his wife Nena. " Do not busy yourselves any longer,'' he 
said to them, " in making pulque, 2 but in the month Tozotli 
hew out a large cypress, and when you see the waters rising 
toward the sky, make it your home." Nata and Nena obeyed 
these divine orders. They fed upon maize during the time 
when their boat floated on the water ; at the end of the allot- 
ted time this boat stood still, and for the first time they saw a 
few fish. They hastened to seize them and to roast them 
on a fire, which they made by rubbing two pieces of wood 
together. But the gods complained of the smoke which 
reached them, and the irritated Titlahuacan hurried to the 
earth, and changed the fish into dogs. 

Another Mexican tradition 3 tells us that Coxcox and his 

1 Bancroft /. c. : vol.. III., p. 69. 

2 A fermented drink made with the sap of the aloe, and known in Mexico, 
where it is still in use, under the name of octli. 

3 We give Clavigero's version, reproduced by Humboldt and Lord Kingsbo- 
rough ; but according to more recent works it is a mistaken interpretation of 
the map of Gemalli Carreri (Churchill " Coll. of Voyages," vol. IV.), from which 
it is borrowed. The painting dedicated to this tradition would represent the 
departure and migrations of a tribe amongst the lakes of Anahuac. We see a 
bird perched upon a tree, and at the foot of this tree a crowd of men all looking 
one way and ready to start on their journey. The name of this bird, Tihuito- 
chan, and its cry, Tihui, which signifies in Aztec language We must start, are 
probably the origin of the legend which we relate ; but it is not mentioned by 
any of the more ancient historians, such as Sahagun, Mendieta, or Ixtlilxochitl. 



THE ORIGIN OF MAN IN AMERICA. 



529 



wife Xochiquetzal alone escaped the deluge ; they took 
refuge in the hollow trunk of a cypress, which floated 
upon the water, and stopped at last on the top of a 
mountain of Culhuacan. They had many children, but 
the children were dumb. The great spirit took pity on 
them and sent them a dove to teach them to speak ; this 
dove hastened to fulfil its mission ; fifteen of Coxcox's 
children succeeded in understanding it, and it is from them 
that the Toltecs, Aztecs, and Acolhuas are descended. We 
meet with a legend somewhat like this in Michoacan ; only 
the name of the man preserved from the deluge is different ; 
lie is called Tespi, and the bird that is the harbinger of fine 
weather is a humming-bird. In Guatemala and California 
the most ancient traditions of the natives preserve the mem- 
ory of a great inundation ; and according to the inhabitants 
of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, the world was repeopled by 
a man and woman rescued from the waters that covered the 
whole country. 

The Peruvians also have several legends relating to a great 
deluge. At Quito, it is said that in very remote ages the 
waters had invaded the land, as a punishment for the crimes 
of men ; a few of them had been spared, and these had re- 
tired to a wooden house on the top of Pichincha. At Cuzco 
the sun interfered, and hid those who were to be saved in 
the Island of Titicaca. According to a tradition preserved 
at Pachacamac, the entire country was covered with water 
some centuries before the time of the Incas ; a few men 
took refuge in the mountains, and when the water began to 
go down they let loose some dogs, which came back wet ; a 
few days later they were sent forth a second time, and came 
back soiled with mud. At this sign the men knew that the 
waters had retired ; they left their retreat, and their pos- 
terity peopled the country. 

A still more strange account is that telling how a shep- 
herd, noticing that the llamas passed the night looking at 
the stars, questioned one among them as to the cause of his 
preoccupation. The llama called his attention to the un- 



530 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



usual conjunction of six stars, adding that this conjunction 
was a sure sign that the world was soon to be destroyed by 
water and that if his master wished to escape becoming the 
victim of the approaching catastrophe he must take refuge 
with his family and flock on the neighboring mountains. 
The shepherd hastened to follow this advice, and withdrew 
to the loftiest mountain 1 of the country, where a crowd of 
animals had already preceded him. He had scarcely arrived 
when the angry waves covered the earth, but the mountain 
floated like a boat, and rose as the waters increased. This 
deluge lasted five days, and was accompanied by a total 
eclipse of the sun. Then the waters gradually retired, and 
the shepherd and his family became the ancestors of the 
Peruvian people. 2 

Other traditions, chiefly met with in the countries form- 
ing the present republic of Ecuador, make two brothers who 
took refuge from the waters on the mountain of Huacaynan, 
the fathers of the whole human race. Their provisions 
were exhausted, and they were obliged to leave the misera- 
ble hut where they had found a refuge, to go into the half 
submerged valley. On their return they were astonished to 
find a meal prepared for them. Curious to know who had 
thus come to their assistance, one of the brothers only went 
out the next day, while the other kept watch. He soon 
saw two birds called aras, in the form of women, 3 approach- 
ing, loaded with provisions. He succeeded in seizing one 
of them, who became his wife, and mother of the human race. 

Lastly in Brazil a god named Monan, angry at the corrup- 
tion of men, destroyed the earth by water and by fire. One 
man alone escaped, in the destruction of all living creatures ; 

1 According to some, the mountain of Ancasmarca five leagues from Cuzco, 
according to others Mount Huarocheri nearer the sea. 

2 Molina, " Relacion de las fabulas y Ritos de los Ingas," MS. des arch. 
Madrid. 

3 Brasseur de Bourbourg, who relates this legend, says that there were two 
women called Ara. He adds that the people of this province retain a great 
veneration for the Aras, on account of the service which birds had rendered to 
their ancestors. 



THE ORIGIN OF MAN IN AMERICA. 



531 



Monan took pity on his misery and gave him a wife, and it 
was they who repeopled the earth after these terrible events. 1 

Similar myths are found among various Indian tribes ; the 
legend of a deluge and of a saviour and benefactor of the 
human race extends to the Alaskan tribes and is in fact 
almost world-wide among all classes of men in some form or 
other. No dissemination of merely Christian ideas, since 
the conquest, is sufficient to account for these myths, which 
appear to have their root in the natural tendencies of the 
human mind in its evolution from a savage state. 

That America was peopled at different times by scions of 
different races is highly probable from the physical differ- 
ences to be observed between the remains of pre-historic man 
and the complexion and features he bequeathed to his his- 
toric descendants. That these races were still in a very 
low and undifferentiated state, other than in their physique, 
we have already stated as probable. 

Among the crude and imperfectly digested hypotheses 
which have engaged the attention of untrained ethnologists, 
none have been more popular than those which ascribed the 
origin of the Americans to full-fledged races such as we 
know at present in other regions of the world. Among 
those who have been claimed as the original or genuine 
ancestors of the Americans are the Chinese, the Japanese, 
the Malays, the Egyptians, the Phoenicians, the Basques, 
the ten lost tribes of Israel, the early Irish, the Welsh, the 
Norsemen, some unknown Asiatic freemasons, and other 
equally unknown Buddhists. Volumes have been filled with 
the most enthusiastic rubbish by men upon whose ability 
and sanity in other matters, nothing has ever thrown a 
doubt. Fortunately the era of such speculations is passing 
away. The scientific treatment of anthropological subjects 
is no longer the exception. 

The " ten lost tribes " still linger with us, and doubtless 
will continue to do so for some time, probably becoming in 



1 P. Thevet, Cordelier, " Les singularites de la France Antarctique autrement 
nommee Amerique," Paris, 1858. 



53^ 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



their turn the subject of investigation by psychologists in- 
terested in aberrant mental phenomena. But every day in- 
creases our knowledge of the true constitution of savage 
society, and builds a more enduring barrier against the floods 
of pure hypothesis. Students are less and less likely to be 
fooled by such a preposterous fiction as the so-called history 
of Moncatch Ape, which, within a few years has engaged 
the serious attention of some of the most worthy and dis- 
tinguished European ethnologists ; and the day is not far 
distant when men possessed by absurd anthropological 
hobbies will no longer be patiently permitted to ventilate 
them before scientific bodies, but will be placed on the same 
list with the squarers of circles and the discoverers of per- 
petual motion. 

Many of these hypotheses were discussed at length, with 
a view to their refutation in the French edition of this work, 
by its learned author. It has been thought best to omit 
the discussions as, in the interval which has elapsed, they 
have come to bear still less relation to the actual state of the 
science ; and, further, because American students, having 
the advantage of being on the ground, have pretty well dis- 
carded many ill-founded notions which still linger among 
the less enterprising of European anthropologists. 

This translation being intended for the American public 
has, therefore, been brought as nearly in unison with the 
present state of science in this country as the rapid progress 
of such studies would permit, and, it is hoped, will convey 
to many general readers a not uninteresting survey of the 
class of facts upon which the scientific conception of Pre-his- 
toric man in America is based. That there is much to learn 
is self-evident, that a beginning has been made is certain, 
that the results in the end will testify to the orderly reign of 
evolution here as in the Old World we have every reason to 
be confident. 



APPENDIX. 



A. DISCOVERIES IX CALIFORNIA. 

We think it will be useful to give a summary of the principal discoveries 
made in California, and to add to it a list of the mammals whose remains have 
been found on the coasts of the Pacific, in strata ascribed to the quarternary 
period. 

Mariposa county, mastodon bones mixed with human bones and stone 
weapons, the most remarkable of the latter being an obsidian lance-point, five 
inches long. 

At Hornitos and Princeton, stone mortars with their pestles, one of the mor- 
tars eighteen inches high and weighing fifty pounds, being one of the largest 
known ; obsidian arrow and lance-heads, together with bones of the elephant, 
horse, and an indeterminate species resembling the camel. 

Merced county, numerous implements from near Snelling. 

Stanislatis county, an elephant's tusk, ten feet long, 

Tuolumne county, wagon-loads of mastodon bones ; numerous stone objects. 
In all the auriferous gravels have been found bones of extinct animals associated 
with the products of human industry. The greatest depth of the excavations 
yielding profitable results here was two hundred feet. 

Under the basaltic deposits of Table Mountain has been discovered a human 
jaw, together with two lance-heads, a pestle, and several stone objects resemb- 
ling our ladles, 1 A human skeleton was found in cutting a tunnel beneath 
Table Mountain, 2 but details respecting it are as yet too incomplete to justify 
any conclusion. 

Amador county, various stone objects. 

El Dorado county, at Shingle Springs, stone mortars and mastodon bones ; 
at Diamond Springs, mortars ; at Spanish Flat, ' ' Tools, kitchen utensils, and 
other indestructible traces of man's presence and activity," says Voy, one of the 
most indefatigable excavators of California. Some human bones have been 
picked up in a bed of clay. — (Letter of Dr. Boyce, Nov. 2, 1S70.) 

Placer county, near Gold Hill numerous stone objects ; at Forest Hill, a dish 
hewn out of very hard granite, measuring about eighteen inches in diameter ; at 
Devil's Canon, two human bones beneath a thick bed of lava. 

Nevada cottnty, numerous objects fabricated by man have been picked up be- 
tween 1853 an< I 1864. 

1 " Scoops, or ladles with well-shaped handless." — Whitney, " Auriferous Gravels," p. 264... 
2 Proc. Boston Soc. of Nat. Hist., vol, XV, 1873, p. 257. 

533 



534 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



Butte county, the first discoveries were made more than twenty years ago ; 
they consisted of instruments, weapons, and implements of the most varied 
form. 

Some traces of the contemporaneity of man and of animals of extinct race 
have also been made out in Trinity and Siskiyou counties. It is very probable 
thatvlater researches will complete the discoveries already made. 

The bones of which we have still to speak were none of them found in their 
natural position ; they had evidently been brought down by tumultuous waters, 
which the bones of the strongest mammals alone were able to resist. 

Some of these bones have been picked up under thick beds of basalt or lava. 
In these beds we note no fissure which could justify us is supposing that the 
bones can have gained access to the places where they lay after the deposit of 
volcanic material. The species discovered under such conditions are very few. 
Thus far but three are mentioned in any thing of an intact condition 1 : a rhin- 
oceros (R. hesperus) related alike to the R. indicus and the R. occidentalis, but 
decidedly smaller than the latter ; the Elotherium superbtim, a species probably 
related to the Elotherium ingens of Dakota ; and lastly a pachyderm, of which 
all that has been found is one fragment of one tooth. In speaking of it Leidy 
says : " Apparently the fragment of an incisor or canine of some large pachy- 
derm ; not the mastodon or elephant, and probably allied to the hippopotamus." 

Quaternary species are of course more numerous. Amongst them we will 
mention : 

Felides, Felis i?nperialis. 

Canides. — A wolf that Dr. Leidy thinks is the C. indianaensis, found together 

with the megalonyx on the banks of the Ohio. 
Bovides ; B. latifrons. 

Camelides. — In Merced county Voy found a llama {Auchenia californica) of 
very large size ; some teeth from the Alameda county appear to belong to a 
smaller species {A hesterna). 

Dr. Snell possesses in his collection the molar tooth of a large ruminant found 
near Sonora ; it resembles a tooth picked up near the Niobrara river, and attri- 
buted by Dr. Leidy to a species to which he proposes giving the name of 
Megalo??ieryx, but which is very likely the same as the Proca?nelus. 

Caprides. — None of the bones found belong incontestably to this group. 

Cervides. — All that is known of this group is a metatarsus from Mariposa 
county, belonging to a deer smaller than the C. virginianus. 

Proboscidians. — We have already said how numerous these were in California. 
During the tertiary and probably also during a great part of the quaternary 
periods they wandered freely throughout North America as far as Labrador. 2 
The greater number are related to M. amei'icanus. On account of certain 
slight differences, however, Dr. Leidy has thought of creating three new species 
Jf. mirijicus, M. andium, and M. obscurus. 

1 J. Leidy : ' ; The extinct Mammalian Fauna of Dakota and Nabraska," Philadelphia, 
1869. " Contributions to the extinct vertebrate Fauna of the Western Territories," Report 0/ 
the U. S. Geological Survey, Washington, 1873. 

2 " Cart loads of Mastodon bones have been accumulated at various places between Sonora 
and the Stanislaus river at workings in the limestone crevices." Whitney : " The Auriferous 
Gravels." p. 251. 



APPENDIX. 



535 



Elephants {Elephas columbi, Falconer) were less numerous than mastodons. 
A complete skeleton has been discovered near the Fresno river ; its vertebral 
column was more than twenty feet long. 

Equns. — Many are known. E. excelsus found at Santa-Maria oil springs, 
E. caballus, recalling the horse of the present day, and lastly, E. pacificus, the 
largest of v all the Calif ornian species, found in Contra Costa county, and which 
Whitney even ascribes to the pliocene period. 

To complete our study we give a list of the flora whose presence has been 
made out in the auriferous gravels and deposits of Table Mountain. 1 



Fagus antipofi 
Quercus eloenoides 
Quercus convexa 
Salix Californica 
Platinus dissecta 
Ulmus californica 
Ulmus affinis 
Ficus microphylla 
Persea pseudo-carolinensis 



Aralia zaddachi 
Cornus ovalis 
Acer bolanderi 
Ilex prunifolia 
Zizyphus microphyllus 
Rhus typhinoides 
Rhus metopioides 
Rhus dispersa 
Cerocarpus antiqua. 



B. SPECIES FOUND IN THE SHELL-HEAPS OF MAINE AND 

MASSACHUSETTS. 





Mount 


Couch 


Eagle 


Cotuit 




Desert. 


Cave. 


Hill. 


Port. 


Homo 








I 


Cervus canadensis .... 










Alces americanus .... 




I 






Rangifer caribou .... 




I 






Cervus virginianus .... 




I 


I 


I? 


Ursus americanus .... 




I 




I 


Canis occidentalis . . • . 










Canis {species domesticata) 






I 


I 


Vulpes fulves ..... 








I 


Felis sp . . 








I 


Lutra canadensis .... 










Putorius vison . . . . 








I 


Mustela americana .... 










Mephitis mephitica .... 








I 


Phoca vitulina ..... 


I 






I 


Castor canadensis .... 


I 




I 




Arctomyx monax .... 


I 








Alca impennis . 


I 








Alca torda . . 


I 








Anser {species duo) . 


I 








Piscis squaloideus .... 








I 


Morrhua americana . 


I 




I 




Lophius americanus .... 
Buccinum undatum .... 










I 








Busycon canaliculatum et B. carica . 










Ostrea edulis et Mya arenaria . 


I 




I 




Venus mercenaria .... 






I 




Mytilus edulis .... 


I 




I 




Pecten tenuicostatus et P. islandicus . 










Mactra sp . . ... 










1 Whitney, /. c, p. 235. 



536 



PRE- HIS TOPIC A M ERICA . 



C. SPECIES FOUND IN THE SHELL-HEAPS OF IOWA. 



Mammals. Bos americanus . 

Cervus virginianus 
Birds. Bernicla canadensis . 
Chelonian Reptiles. Chelydra serpentina 
Trionyx ferox 

Fish. Pimelodus (?) 

Embiotoca (?) 
Mollusca. Paludina integra, Say . 

Unio aesopus, Green . 

" anodontoides, Lea 

" crassus, Say 

" ebenus, Lea 

" gibbosus, Barnes. 

11 nodosus, Barnes . 

" ovatus, Say 

" plicatus, Say 

" pustulosus Lea . 

" rectus, Lamark . 

" rugosus, Barnes . 

" tuberculatus, Barnes 

" undatus, Barnes . 

" ventricosus, Barnes 



Keosoqua Sabula Bellevue. 
- - I 

III 

I 



I 

I - - 

III 
I - I 

I 
I 
I 
I 
I 
I 



NOTE ON RECENT INVESTIGATIONS IN PALENQUE BY CHARNAY. 

The occasion of conferring the Logerot prize, the gold medal, for new ex- 
plorations in Mexico and Central America, by the Societe de Geographie of 
Paris, is fully reported upon in the Society's Bulletin for the present year (pp. 
268-277). The recipient, M. Desire Charnay, has long been engaged in 
ethnological researches, to which reference has been made in the preceding 
pages. His work, which, at last advices, was on the point of publication, has 
been crowned by the Society ; and in the report of the committee upon this 
matter, some of the important results attained are briefly summarized. Like 
all scientific investigations, their tendency is to refute much sensational closet- 
ethnology and to indicate more clearly than ever the unity of aboriginal culture 
in America. 

Some of the facts brought out are of such interest that it has seemed well at. 
the last moment to include them in the present appendix. Their bearing upon 
some of the problems discussed in the chapters on Central America and Mexico 
will be evident to our readers. 

In visiting Palenque, M. Charnay made great use of a convenient process, by 
which moulds of bas-relief sculpture can be taken in a few moments. It con- 
sists in the application of tow sopped in liquid plaster, which can be laid on in 
a thin layer, the threads of the tow making the plaster extremely tough when 
set, and the lightness of the mould greatly facilitating transportation, always 
so expensive and difficult for large ethnological objects. An extensive set of 
reliefs from these moulds is on exhibition in the United States National 
Museum at Washington. 

The moulds of M. Charnay have entirely done away with the elephant 



APPENDIX. 



537 



sculptures reported by Waldeck on which so many pretty theories have been 
erected. There is absolutely nothing elephantine there, and it seems that the 
earlier reports were based on a misconception, due to extraneous vegetation 
lichens or stalagmites which have encrusted part of the ruins. 

It appears that Palenque, so far from being in forgotten ruins at the time of 
the Spanish Conquest, as has been so often stated (after Waldeck), was the 
city of Teoticcac, the religious metropolis of the Acaltecs, where Cortez and all 
his men might have encamped in a single building. Another site discovered by 
Charnay, and temporarily named Lorillard City, after the patron of his explora- 
tions, is decided to be the remains of Izancanac, the capital of the State of 
Acallan, traversed by Cortez in returning to Honduras. These, as well as 
Copan, Chichen Itza, and Izamal are of relatively modern origin, and, accord- 
ing to Charnay, cannot exceed seven or eight hundred years in age. 

The explorer decides that the remarkable edifices of Yucatan and Chiapas are 
wholly due to the Toltecs, immigrants from the plateau of Anahuac, after the 
destruction of the Government of Tollan in the beginning of the twelfth cen- 
tury. The differences exhibited by the various monuments, to him character- 
ize only stages or special developments of one and the same, state of art and 
social culture. "However this may be," says Dr. Hamy, the learned and 
distinguished archaeologist of Paris, "the affinities demonstrated by Charnay 
between Yucatan and ancient Anahuac, are so close, so very numerous, and so 
much in harmony with the' teachings of history that it will be indispensable 
hereafter that they shall be seriously taken into account in the study of 
American ethnology." 



INDEX. 



Abiquico (New Mexico), two skulls 

from near, 498, 499 
Acelidotherium associated with human 

remains in Brazil, 25 
Acequias near Casa Grande, 224 
Acequias of Peru, 422 
Acolhuas (the), 11 

Acora (Peru), megaliths and chulpas 
at, 424 

Agriculture amongst the Peruvians, 
423 

amongst the Mound Builders, 

182 

Alabama, abnormal skull of a child 
from mound in, 488 

■ mounds near Florence, 106 

shell-heaps, 48 

Alaska, shell-heaps, 47 

Algonquins, cannibalism amongst, 62 

Amazon valley, cannibalism amongst 
the tribes of the, 63 

complexion of the inhabitants of, 

in 16th century, 3 

Amelia Island, shell-heap, 48 

America, first discovered by Euro- 
peans 1 ; landing of Cortes upon the 
shores of, 2 

in the 16th century, its inhabi- 
tants, 3 

its fauna, 3 

■ its flora, 4 

Anahuac, conquered by the Aztecs, 
11 

Andes, complexion of the inhabitants 

of, in 16th century, 3 
Anercerty Point, shell-heap, 48 
animal bones associated with 

human remains, 28, 36, 37, 55, 535, 

536 

Apaches, treatment of prisoners by, 
62 

Aprouague river (Guiana), polished 
stone hatchets from the banks of, 
27 

funeral arms from the Parana, 1 



and from the provinces of Tucuman 

and La Rioja, 474 
Argentine Republic, pictographs in 

the Santa Maria valley, 455 

Piedras Pintadas in, 471, 472 

Arica, mummies from, 430 
Arizona, mound in, 83 
Arkansas, ancient mining in, 180 

vases from the mounds, 141 

wall near Helena, 104 

Ash Cave, Benton county (Ohio), 72 
Astronomy among the Nahuacs, 305 ; 

Aztec division of time, 306 ; the 

Maya and Toltec calendar, 306 
Atacama, abnormal skull of a child 

from, 488 
Aymara, 6 

Aymaras, sepulchres of the, 424 
Azilan, the home of the Nahuatl race, 

where located, 284 
Aztalan, mounds of, 92 

tradition concerning, 93 

Aztecs, they conquer Anahuac, 11 

religion of, 292 ; the god Teotl, 

292 ; the god Camaxtli, 293 ; sacri- 
fice of infants, 293 ; obsidian knife 
used in sacrifice, 293 ; the god 
Mixcoatl, 294 ; the god Xuihte- 
cutli, 295 

their migration, 285 ; Chicomez- 

toc, 285 ; founding of Tenotch- 
litan, 285 ; wars, 286 ; alliance 
with the Acolhuas and the Tepa- 
necs, 286 ; rapid progress of the 
Aztecs, 286 

tribute from the conquered tribes 

who hate their conquerors, 287 ; 
buildings and engineering works 
erected by the Aztecs, 288 ; poems 
of Nezahualcoyotl, 288 

Nezahualpilli and the daughter of 

Axacayatl, 289 ; a prophecy of the 
return of Quetzacoatl which greatly 
helped the Spaniards, 291 ; death of 
Nezahualpilli, 291; Montezuma, 291 



539 



54Q 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



Aztecs, Tlacatlaotli, 295 ; the dedica- 
tion of the temple of Huitzilo- 
pochtli, 296 ; legend concerning 
that god, 296 ; number of victims 
sacrificed at the Aztec festivals 
though large was greatly exaggera- 
ted by Spanish historians, 297 ; type 
of sacrificial altars, 297 ; belief in a 
future life, 298 ; some burial cus- 
toms, 299 

Aztec Spring (Colorado), ruins at, 215 

Bones of, bearing traces of human 
workmanship found in Buenos 
Ayres, 30 

Brazil, cannibalism in, 53, 58 ; fertil- 
ity of its soil, 465 ; Agassiz on its 
resources, 466 ; flora and fauna, 
466 ; degradation of its natives pop- 
ulation, 466 ; the native called 
Guarani by the Spaniards and Tupi 
by the Portuguese (see Guarani), 467; 
they probably had more civilized 
predecessors to whom we must at- 
tribute the megaliths and rock- 
paintings and engravings, 469 ; dis- 
coveries of Herkman in the prov- 
ince of Pernambuco, 469 ; intaglio 
sculptures of Para and Piauhy, 469 ; 
red ochre drawings on bank of Rio 
Doce, 469, 470 ; inscription on 
rocks in Ceara, 470, 471 ; inTijuco, 
470 ; the Piedras Pintadas, 470 ; el 
Palacio, 471 ; pottery, 472 ; discov- 
eries of pottery on the island of 
Pacoval-Marajo and at Taperinha, 
472 ; fragments of pottery from 
near Santarem (province of Para), 
473 ; Rodriguez, discoveries on the 
Rio das Trombettas, 473 ; the 
Muirakitau, 473 ; weapons and im- 
plements, 475 ; weapons from pro- 
vince of Maranhao, 475 ; discovery 
of a jadeite hatchet, 475 

Cairo (Tennessee), human remains en- 
closed in baskets near, 114 

Cakhay, the Indian name for the 
mounds in Vera Paz (Mexico), 82 

Calaveras skull (the), 40-45 

its resemblance to the Eskimo 

type, 43 

it contains a trace of organic 

matter, 44 

note by the American Editor, 45 

Calca, tower of, 417 

Calendar stone, found in Mexico, 306 

California tribes, degradation of, 8 



California shell-heaps, 50-51 

caves as burial places, 69 

the Hohgates, 64 

mounds in, 83 

principal discoveries in, 533 

serpentine cups, 168 ; dishes 

from vertebras of Cetacea from 
Santa Barbara, 168 

skulls in the shell-heaps of, 480 

Canada, two glacial periods in, 19 

Cards latrans (Coyote), 4 

Cannibalism amongst North American 
Indians, 62 

in Brazil, 53, 58 ; in Florida, 58, 

59 ; in New England, 59 ; in 
Europe, 59, 60 ; in America, 61 ; in 
Peru, 61 ; in Mexico, 61 ; in Scy- 
thia, 60 ; on the borders of the Eux- 
ine, 60 ; amongst the Galatians, 60 ; 
in Ireland, 66 ; in Gaul, 60 ; in 
Rome, 60 ; in Scandinavia, 60 ; in 
Terra del Fuego, 62, 63 ; on the 
Orinoco, 63 ; at Tahiti, 63 ; on the 
Amazon, 63 

amongst the mound builders, 119 

Capulli (the), 310 

Caribs, Cannibalism amongst, 61 

Carthage (Alabama), truncated mounds 
near, 82 

Casa Grande, 223 

Casas Grandes, see also Pueblos 

the probable Ethnic identity of 

the builders with the Mound Build- 
ers and Cliff Dwellers, 499 ; skull 
from a tumulus from near the Casa- 
Grande of Montezuma,. 499 

Cave-Dwellings described, 203, 205 

Caves, human remains in, 24 

inhabited by Europeans in 

quaternary times, 69 ; used as burial 
places in America, 69 ; in Durango 
(Mexico), 69 ; in Peru, 69 ; in 
California, 69 ; in Missouri, 70 ; 
list of Strata in cave on Gasconade 
River, 70 ; implements in, 70 ; 
Shelter Cave (Ohio), 71 ; Ash Cave 
(Ohio), 72 ; in Summit County 
(Ohio), 72 ; in Pennsylvania, 73 ; 
near Louisville (Kentucky), 74 ; in 
the province of Oajaca, 74 ; near 
Greyson's Springs (Kentucky), 74 ; 
Salt Cave (Kentucky), 75 ; Short's 
Cave (Kentucky), mummy in, 76 

Cayenne River (Guiana), polished 
stone hatchets from the banks of, 27 

Ceara (Brazil), inscriptions on rocks, 
of, 470 

Ceutla, ruins of, 354 



INDEX. 



541 



entral America, resemblance of its 
ancient monuments to those of 
Egypt, 14 

— traditions regarding convulsions 
of nature in, 17 

— number of mounds in, §5 

— ■ earthenware pipes from near 
San Salvador, 152 

— people of, 260 ; hieroglyphics, 
260-263 ; movement of population 
from North to South, 260 ; no posi- 
tive evidence as to date of Emigra- 
tions, 261 the Nahuatl race, 262 ; 
the Mayas, 262 ; the predecessors of 
Mayas, 264 ; the Toltecs, 271 ; fol- 
lowed by other tribes of the 
Nahuatl race, 271 ; did these 
people come from the North or 
South ? 272 ; religious wars, 274 ; 
the Chichimecs, 279 ; the Tezcuans, 
281 ; the Tepanecs and Acolhuas, 
284 ; the Aztecs, 285 ; religious 
ideas of the Central American races, 
291 ; of the Nahuas, 292 ; burial 
customs and rites, 299 ; mummies, 
301; cremation, 302; a royal 
funeral, 303 ; human sacrifices, 304 ; 
mortuary vase, 305 ; astronomy, 
305 ; divisions of time among the 
Aztecs, 306 ; amongst the Mayas 
and Toltecs, 306 ; weapons of the 
Aztecs, 307 ; defensive works, 307 ; 
costume, 308 ; government probably 
democratic, 309 ; the Calpulli, 310 ; 
no private ownership of land, 311 ; 
descent though female line, 311 ; 
marriage, 312; no patronymic 
names, 312 

— education of children, 312; slavery, 
312 ; punishments, 313 ; tribes and 
tribe government, 315 ; initiation of 
the Tecuhtli, 315 ; manuscripts of, 
389 ; private life, 380 ; knowledge 
of the arts, 381 ; decoration of pot- 
tery, 383 ; obsidian implements and 
ornaments, 385 ; ornaments of agate, 
coral and shell, 386 ; conclusions as 
to their culture, 386 

— ruins of Maya and Nahuatl, 
architecture distinguishable, 317 ; 
Maya buildings of Chiapas of differ- 
ent style from those of Yucatan, 317 ; 
Maya ruins, monuments of Palenque, 
318 ; hieroglyphics, 319 ; niches re- 
sembling the Egyptian tau, 320 ; 
the arch unknown, 321 ; hypotheses 
as to the age of the Palenque ruins, 
.322 ; the temple of the cross, 324 ; 



the Palenque tablet, 324, 325 ; the 
cross elsewhere in Central America, 
327 ; Copan, 328 ; ruins of, 330 

Central America, ruins in different 
parts of Yucatan, 332 

Lorillard city, 333 : differences 

between monuments of Chiapas and 
those of Yucatan, 333 ; ruins of 
Chichen-Itza and Uxmal, 334 ; ele- 
phant-trunk-shaped ornaments, 335 ; 
representations of other animals, 
336; phallic emblems, 336, 338; 
no weapons nor implements found 
in the ruins, 340 ; Kabah and 
Labna, ruins of, 340 ; Zayi, ruins 
at, 340 ; Chichen-Itza, ruins of, 
340 ; bas-relief found by Dr. L. 
Plongeon at Chichen-Itza, 345 ; de- 
ciphering the hieroglyphics, 346 ; 
the cara gigantesca, 347, 348 ; Iza- 
mal, ruins of, 349, 536 

roads and bridges, 349 

Nahuatl ruins, 350 ; pyramid of 

Cholula, 350 ; date of erection, 351 ; 
Xochicalco, 352 ; temple of, 353 ; 
fortifications in Anahuac, 354 ; at 
Huatusco, 354 ; at Ceutla, 354 ; 
pyramids near Tehuantepec, 355 ; 
Tula, ruins of, 355 ; discoveries of 
Charnay, 356 ; glass and porcelain, 
356 ; temple in honbr of the god 
Huitzilopochtli, 358 ; Tezcuco, 360 ; 
Quemada, 361 

Zapotecs ruins, 364 ; Mitla, 364 ; 

temple of Mitla, 365 ; mosaics, 368 ; 
Cerro de Guiengola fortifications, 
368, sepulchre at Tehuantepec, 369 ; 
Santa Lucia Cosumhualpa, ruins at, 
371 ; ruins elsewhere in Guatemala, 
373 ; at Quirigua, 373 

Cerro de Guiengola, fortifications of, 
368 

Chaco canon (New Mexico), cliff 
dweller's skull, from 497, 498 

Chaco valley, ruins in, 230, 231, 234 

Chacota, bay of, mummies from, 430 

mummies from, 504 

Chamber's Island (Wisconsin), platy- 
cnemic's tibiae from tumulus on, 493 

various shaped skulls from mound 

on, 487 

Chelles, resemblance of its palaeolithic 
implements to those of the Dela- 
ware valley, 20 
Cherokees, council-house of, 191 
Chibchas or Muyscas (the), they and 
their country described, 459 ; Engin- 
eering and architectural works, 459; 



542 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



fabrics and ornaments : pottery, 

459 ; their wealth, 460 ; traditions, 

460 ; legends about Bochica simi- 
lar to those about Quetzacoatl 
and Manco-Capac, 460 ; [a gram- 
mar of their language, 460 ;] they 
worshipped the sun, to which they 
offered human sacrifice, 461 ; ruins 
near Tunja, supposed to be the town 
of Sogomuxi, 461 ; government of 
the Chibchas 461 ; the Zippas and 
the Zoques, or chiefs, 462 ; burial 
customs, 462 ; laws and penalties, 
462 ; food and dwellings, 463 ; 
knowledge, and use of the metals, 
463 ; trade and coinage, (?) 463 , 
monuments and hieroglyphics, 464, 
465 ; Columns near the junction of 
the Carare and Magdalena, 465 ; 
pictographs of the valleys of Bogota, 
Tunga, and Cauca, 465 

Chichen-Itza. ruins of, 333, 3.34, 340 

Chichimecs (the), 12 

■ 278 ; of the Nahuatl race but un- 
like the Toltecs complete savages, 
279 ; their religion, 280 ; marriage 
customs, 280 ; conquest of Anahuac, 
282 

Chicomoztoc, establishment of the 
Aztecs in, 285 

Chicuito, megaliths of, 424 

Chihuahua, casagrandes in San Miguel 
valley, 225 

low type skulls from certain sep- 
ulchres in, 484 

Chillicothe (Ohio), mounds at, 100, 
101 

Cross on skeleton from mound 

near, 176 

position of bodies in mound at, 

112 

Chimu, ruins of, 395 
Chincha Islands, gold ornaments from, 
68 

silver fish from, 68 

Choccequirao, fortress of, 419 
Cholula, pyramid of, 350 ; date of 

erection, 351 
Christiana (Pennsylvania), ancient 

soapstone quarry at, 51 
Chulpas of Acora, 421 ; near Palca, 

425 

Chunk Yards, 190 
Chunkey, game of, 190 
Circleville (Ohio), mounds at, 101 
Circular mound, skull from, 485 
" Clark's Works," Ross county (Ohio), 
91 



Clavigero, boundaries of Anahuac, 
11 

Cliff Dwellers, points of difference be- 
tween them and the Mound Build- 
ers and other ancient races, 255 ; 
the Spaniards notice no resemblance 
between the inhabitants of Mexico 
and New Mexico, 256 ; a sedentary 
agricultural race, 257 

see also " Pre-historic Amer- 
icans," 497 

on Beaver Creek, 227 ; on the 

Colorado Chiquito, 227 

causes of decadence, 258 ; prob- 
able decrease in rainfall the most 
important, 258 

Cliff-Houses described, 201, 202, 203, 
205 ; on the Rio Mancos, 208, 210; 
in Mac Elmo valley, 214 ; at Aztec 
Spring, 215 ; on the H oven weep, in 
Montezuma valley, 217 ; on the 
Rio de Chelly, 216, 218 ; Cave 
Town, 219 ; in Epsom Creek val- 
ley, 220 

Cloth in mounds of Ohio, Iowa, and 

Illinois, 177 
Coati, island of, 409 ; consecrated to 

the moon, 409 ; ruins of, 409 
Coatzacoalcos river, numerous large 

towns discovered by Cortes upon, 7 
i Colonel Island (Georgia), shell-heaps, 

[ Colorado Chiquito, ruins along the, 
226 

Colorado river, ancient ruins along, 
22S 

Complexions of the Indians, 3 
Connecticut, pipe from, 164 
Connett's Mound, near Dover (Ohio), 
118 

copper beads from, 174 

Convulsions of nature, traditions re- 
garding, in Mexico, Central Amer- 
ica, Peru, and Bolivia, 17 

Cook (Prof.), glacial phenomena in 
New Jersey, 18 

Copan, ruins of, 328 

Copiapo Valley (Chili), mummies from 
huacas in, 43c 

Copper, the only metal in common 
use among the Mound Builders, 
180 

Copper mining by the Mound Builders 
on Lake Superior, 178 ; on Isle 
Royal, 179 

Council Bluffs, intrenchment of the 
Arikarees at, 98 

Coyote, the American dog, 4 



INDEX. 



543 



Cremation among the Indians, 119 
amongst the Mound Builders, 

117, 118, 119 
Cromlechs described, 83 
Cross in Central America monuments, 

327 ; at Lorillard City, 333 
Culture of the Indians, 7 
Cumberland valley, cross on skeleton 

from mound in, 176 
Cuzco, legend of its foundation, 410 ; 

difficulties overcome in building, 

411 ; ruins of, 411 ; grandeur of the 

Sacsahuaman, or fortress, 412 ; 

aqueduct, 413 ; the temple, 413 ; 

private dwellings of the Incas, 414 
Cypress, great age of, 35 

Dakota, low type skulls from mounds 
of, 484 

Davenport (Iowa), sepulchral mound 
at, 113 

Deformation amongst the Mayas, 500 ; 
amongst the Peruvians, 501 ; 
amongst the Indians, 511 ; the cus- 
tom very ancient, 512 ; idols with 

. flattened heads, 512 ; means em- 
ployed, 512 ; health nor intelligence 
apparently injured by, this, 513 , in 
Europe and Asia, 513 ; in Oceanica, 
514 ; in France, deformation toulou- 
saine, 515 ; was deformation always 
voluntary, 515 

Delaware valley, palaeolithic imple- 
ments from, 19, 20, 21 

Dog, bones of, in shell-heap, 49 

Dunleith mound skull, comparison of 
with the Neanderthal skull, 483 

Elephant, trunk-shaped ornaments, 335 
Ely mound (Virginia), shell pin from, 
174 

Escoma valley (Peru), chulpa in., 427 
Eskimo, they passed freely between 

the two hemispheres, 1 

their short stature, 3 

manners and customs similar to 

those of pre-historic man in America, 

especially to the inhabitants of the 

Aleutian Islands, 66 
Esquimalt, dish with two handles 

found in shell-heap, 52 
Etowah river, mound on, 105 

Fasciolaria gigan tea, 172 
Fauna of America (native), 3 
Fijians, cannibalism amongst, 61 
Flora of America (native) , 4 
Florence (Alabama), mounds at, 106 



Florida, discovery of a human jaw- 
bone near Lake Monroe, 33, 34 

river shell-heaps, 57 

shell-heaps, 48 

shell heaps, platycnemic tibiae 

from, 493 

skulls in the shell-heaps of, 481 

Fort, ancient, 92 

Fort Hill (Ohio), mound at, 89, 90 
Fort Wayne (Indiana), burial mound 
at, 112 

platycnemic tibiae from, 493 

skulls from, 485, 487 

Frias (the), (Buenos Ayres), human 
fossils on the banks of, 29 

Funeral rites of the Nahuatl, 299 ; 
cremation, 302 ; a royal funeral, 
303 ; human sacrifices, 304 ; mor- 
tuary vase, 305 

Fusing of metals, were the Mound 
Builders ignorant of the process? 
discoveries in Wisconsin, 181 

Garden Beds, 181 ; in Michigan, In- 
diana, and Missouri, 181 ; west of 
the Mississippi and on the Gulf of 
Mexico, 182 ; in Louisiana. 182 

Gasconade river (Missouri), cave on 
banks of, 70, 71 

Georgetown (Cal.), granite dishes 
from, 39 

Georgia, shell-heap on St. Simon's 

Island, 47 

bird-shaped mound in, 123 

the Messier mound, 106 

Glacial epoch, two periods of, 18, 19 
— ■ — existence of man during, 19 

■ in Kentucky, 18 

in New Jersey, 18 

in North America, 17, 18 

Glacial phenomena in California, 18 
in the savannahs of the Meta 

and the Apure, 18 ; in the valley of 

the Amazon and Rio de la Plata, 

18 

Glacial striae in New England, 17 ; in 
Ohio, 18 ; in Iowa, 18 ; in Michigan, 
18 ; in Wisconsin, 18 

Glassware in the Tula ruins, 356 

Glyptodon, its shell used as a dwell- 
ing by primeval man, 29 

Gold Spring Gulch, oval granite dish 
from, 39 

Granville (Ohio), alligator mound at, 
125 

Great Cheyenne River (Nebraska), 

mound city on, 186 
Great Lakes, pile-dwellings in, 130 



544 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



Great Miami river, mounds along, 91 

Greenwood (Tennessee), 94 

Greyson's Springs (Kentucky), rock 
shelter near, 74 

Guano deposits in Peru, ornaments in, 
68 ; their age, 68 

Guanajuato, spear point from the, 22 

Guarani or Tupi, the native race of 
Brazil, 6, 9, 467 ; characteristics 
and language, 467 ; analogies be- 
tween the languages of Guiana, the 
Upper Amazon, the Antilles, and the 
bay of Rio de Janeiro, 467 ; the 
Botocudos, the Tapuyas, the Tupin- 
ambas, 468 ; [description of the 
skull of the Botocudos by Rey, 468] 
the Guaranis probably had more 
civilized predecessors to whom we 
must attribute the megaliths and 
rock paintings, 469 

Guiana, cannibalism in. 61 

inhabitants of, TO 

piimeval man in, 27 

shell-heaps, 47 

Gulf of Mexico, mounds along, 82 

Harrisonville (Ohio), sepulchral 

mound at, 116 
Hass, the Cahokia (111.) mound, 103 
Helena (Arkansas), wall near, 104 
Hieroglyphics in Central America, 

260, 263 

at Palenque 319 ; throughout 

Central America, 375 ; evolution of 
hieroglyphic writing, 377 ; graphic 
system of Bishop Diego de Landa, 
378 ; the Troano manuscript, 379 

High Rock Spring, Saratoga (New 
York), 74 

Hill Mound (Ohio), serpentine axe 

from, 170 
Hohgates, legend of, 64 
Honduras, cairns near San Salvador, 

84 

mounds in, 82, 83 

veneration of the tiger in, 7 

Hopetown (Ohio) mounds at, 100 
Hoplophoriis euphratus. H. Selloyi, 

H. minor, found fossil in Brazil by 

Lund, 25 
Horse, ancestors of the, 16 

of American origin, 16 

Hovenweep (the), ancient ruins along, 

217 

Huacas, resemble the Mexican teoc- 
alliSj 395 ; Obispo huaca, 396 ; 
Moche huaca, 396 ; of Copiapo 
Valley (Chili), 430 ; near Arica, 



430 ; on Bay of Chacota, 430 ; at 
Iquique, 433 

Huatasco., fortifications at, 354 

Huehue Tlapallan a great empire 
in the North according to Mexican 
traditions, 13 

Hydrochcerus sidcidens, associated 
with human remains in Brazil, 25 

Hyer, the ruins of Aztalan, Wiscon- 
sin, 92, 93. 

Illinois, shell-heaps in, 56 

cloth in mounds of, 177 

copper turtles from mound, 177 

mound at Cahokia, 103 

mounds in, 85, 87 

sepulchral mounds in Carroll 

county, 120 
Stone cists in Madison county, 

115 

Implements, in the drift near Trenton, 

(N.J.,) 20 
in post-tertiary alluvial deposits, 

20 

polished stone hatchets found on 

the banks of the Maroni, Sinna- 
mari, Cayenne, and Aprouague 
rivers (Guiana), 27 

of the neolithic type, from Bue- 
nos Ayres, 28 

in shell-heaps, 47 

from the Gasconade river (Mis- 
souri) cave, 71 

from altar mounds, 107, 108. 

of the Cliff Dwellers, 245 ; with 

the exception of a few copper rings, 
no metal implement or armament 
has been found, 246 

Incas, 6 

Indiana, shell-heaps in, 56 

■ burial mound at Fort Wayne, 112 

pipe from, 165 

Indians, arrangement of wigwams, 

78 ; of New Mexico, shelter of, 78 

■ fortifications of, 98 

cremation amongst, 119 

■ ■ their differences, 187 

their culture, Creeks and Natchez, 

190 ; Cherokees, 190 ; Iroquois, 192 ; 

Mandans, 193 ; Chippewas, 193 

■ ■ camp, 76-77 

Intihuatana, 417 ; of Pisac, 418 
Iowa, bones of the Mastodon mixed 

with stone weapons found in, 37 

shell-heaps in, 56 

mounds in, 82, 85 

mounds near Toolesborough, 84, 

113 



INDEX. 



545 



low?, skeletons in mounds at Daven- 
port, 113 

elephant-shape stone pipe from, 

163 

■ copper axes wrapped in cloth 

from mounds, 177 
Ipswich (Massachusetts) human bones 

with marks of workmanship, 59 
Iron among the Mound Builders, 180 
Iron (meteoric) in the Little Miami 

mounds, 180 
Iroquois, cannibalism amongst, 62 

fortifications of, 98 

Irrigation canals in Missouri, 129 
Isle Royal, ancient copper mining on, 

179 

Ixi lilxochitl, the historian, 12 
Izamal, ruins of, 349 

Jadeite hatchet from Brazil, 475 
Japan, resemblance of its prehistoric 

pottery to that of America, 139 
Jones, examination of twenty-one 

skulls from Tennessee stone graves, 

488 

Juigalpa (Nicaragua), mounds near, 97 

Kabah, ruins of, 340 

Keosauqua (Iowa) shell-heap, 56 

Kennicott mound, skulls from, of de- 
graded type, 483 

Kentucky, caves as burial places, 69. 

human bones in cave near Louis- 
ville, 74 

Salt cave, 75 ; Saunders cave, 

75 ; Haunted cave, 75 ; Short's 
cave, 76 

Kickapoo river (Wisconsin), mounds 
on, 108-109 

Kickapoos, cannibalism amongst, 62 

Kincaid's Hat (Cal.), stone imple- 
ments near, 39 

Kitchen-Middens or shell-heaps de- 
scribed, 46 ; where found, 47 ; their 
large dimensions, 47 ; authorities 
upon American, 47 ; stone imple- 
ments uncommon in, 48 ; bones of 
animals found in, 49 ; bones of 
man found in, 51 ; in Oregon, 51 ; 
on Vancouver's Island, 52 ; on the 
Mississippi river, 56 ; on Florida 
rivers, 57 ; contain shells of the 
Ampullaria and Palndina, 57 ; 
oysters most abundant in Danish 
shell-heaps, 57 ; also in shell-heaps 
of Cape Cod and Maine, 57 ; rude- 
ness of pottery in Florida shell- 
heaps, 58 



Kitchen-Middens, Age of, 64 ; origin 
unknown to the Indians, 64; on Point 
St. George (California) attributed to 
the Hohgates, 64 ; accumulations of 
many generations, 65 ; those of Cal- 
ifornia more recent than those of 
Florida, 65 ; differences in their 
contents not proof of different races, 
66 ; date of formation estimated by 
trees growing upon them, 67 

Kokopas (Indians), cremation 
amongst, 119 

Koleemokee, pyramid of, 106 

Labna, ruins of, 340 

Lagoa Santa (Brazil), skull, descrip- 
tion of, 478 

Lake Monroe (Florida), shell-heap 
with human bones, 58 

the source of the Mound Build- 
ers, copper, 178 

Lake Superior mines, stone hammers 
in, 39 

Languages, the number of dialects, 5 

Aymara and Guarani, 5 

division of dialects into groups, 5 

resemblance in structure of, 6 

La Plata, earthenware and arrow 
heads from the banks of, 27 

pottery of, 472 

Liberty (Ohio), mounds at, 100 

Llama, its utility, 3 

Llautu (the), 419 

Lookout Mountain, mound on, 92 

Lonllard City, ruins of; 333 

Louisiana, ancient skeleton found in 
New Orleans, 35 

reed mat found in salt mines on 

Island of Petite Anse, 36 ; associa- 
ted with bones of an elephant 

shell-heaps in, 47 

mounds in, 82 

garden beds in, 182 

Louisville (Kentucky), human bones 
in cave near, 74 

Lowland villages described, 203, the 
estufas, 204 ; observation towers, 
204 

Lund, remarks of the Lagoa-Santa 
skull, 479, 480 

MacElmo valley, ancient ruins in, 
214 

Mackinac Island, sea shell pendants 
from, 173 

Madisonville, pits at, 52, 53 ; one of 
them contains corn, 53 



546 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



Madisonville (Ohio), skeletons in 

mounds at, 113 
Mahquahwitl (the), 170 
Maine, shell heaps, 48 ; bones of ani- 
mals found in, 49 

cannibalism in, 59 

Mammoth Cave, platycriemic tibiae 

from, 493 
Mammoth in glacial clay in Ohio, 19 
Man on the American Continent, his 

great antiquity, 14 
Manecas (terra-cotta statuettes) in 

Honduras and Guatemala, 167 
Mandans, fortifications of, 98 
Manioc, idigenous to America, 4 
Manuscripts of the Aztecs, the Troano 

manuscript, 379 
of the Mexicans, 379 ; different 

styles of, 380 
Maranhao (Brazil), weapons from, 475 
Marginella apicina, shells of, in Big 

Mound, St. Louis, 117 
Marginella conoidalis, 172 
Marietta (Ohio), mounds at, 102 
Maroni river (Guiana), polished stone 

hatchets from the banks of, 27 
Massachusetts, shell-heaps in, 47, 48 
■ human bones, with marks of 

workmanship, at Ipswich, 59 
Mastodon, 15 

in glacial clay in Ohio, 19 

with human remains in Buenos 

Ayres, 28 
Matontiple, mound at, 105 
Maumis, cannibalism, 62 
Mayas (the), 12 

Mayas (the), 262 ; their empire and 
capital, 263, 264 ; legend about the 
founding of the confederation, 264 ; 
Votan, 264 ; katunes of Maya his- 
tory, 265 ; manuscripts of, 266 ; 
religious sacrifices, 266 ; idols, 268 ; 
metals, ornaments, and weapons, 
269 

navigation among, 269 ; houses, 

270 ; temples, 270 
crania of, artificially deformed, 

500 

Megaliths, 424 
Megaloiiyx, 15 
Megatherium, 15, 16 
Menhirs, on mounds at Esquimalt, 52 
Mercedes (Buenos Ayres), human fos- 
sils near, 29 
Merom, skulls from, 483 
Messier mound (Georgia), 106 
Mexicans, 6 

Mexico, city of, scraper from near, 22 



Mexico, cannibalism in, 61 

caves as burial places, 69 ; in 

general they contain no evidence of 

previous habitation, 69 

mounds in, 82 

ancient bas-reliefs of the serpent, 

127 

Mexico, resemblance of its ancient 
monuments to those of Egypt, 14 

worked stones in post-tertiary 

beds, 22 ; hatchet from the Rio 
Juchipila, 22 ; spear point from the 
Guanajuato, 22 ; scraper from near 
Mexico, 22 

traaitions regarding convulsions 

of nature in, 17 

or Tenoclititlan, founding of, 

235 

resemblance of skulls from, to 

those of the Mound Builders, 500 

Mica, in the mounds, 109 

Mica ornaments (see ornaments). 

Michigan, mounds in, 82 

ancient pottery in, 136 

collar of bear teeth and beads of 

birds bones and copper, from near 
St. Clair river, 172 

Minnesota, shell heaps, 56 

sepulchral mounds on the St. 

Peter's River, 121 

spider-shaped mound in 123 

Mississippi, jar from near the Talla- 
hatchie river, 168 

mounds in, 82 

sepulchral mound near Musca- 

catine, 119 

pottery in sepulchral mounds, 

151 

shell-heaps on banks of, 56 

Mississippi valley, mounds in, 80 
Missouri, Mastodon and arrow points 
near Bourbeuse river, 36 

same near Potato river, 37 

shell-heaps, 56 

cave in Pulaski county, 70 

mounds in, 82 

number of mounds in, 85 

mounds near St. Louis, 86 

mounds at Sandy-Woods settle- 
ment', 95 

sepulchral mounds near Trenton, 

114 

irrigation canals in, 129 

ancient pottery in, 135, 136 

clay bottle at New Madrid, 139 

pottery jar from, 139 

vase in sepulchral mound in, 142 

143 



INDEX. 



547 



Missouri, vase from New Madrid, 144 

vase from grave, 146 

cooking pot, 148 ; vessel with 

spout, 148 ; vessel from, 149 ; basins 

from, 149, 150 

cup from New Madrid, 150 

potteiy in sepulchral mounds, 

151 

earthenware pipe from, 152 

red vase with snake, 153 

fish-shaped vase from, 155 

vases representing man, 156, 157, 

158 

pipes from Mound City, 164 

■ pipe from, 165 

ancient mining in, 180 

skull associated with tooth of a 

mastodon from New Madrid mound, 

482 

low type skull from mounds of, 

487 

two categories of skulls authen- 
ticated, 488 

Missouri valley, mounds in, 80 

Mitla, ruins of, 364 

Mixcoatl, the serpent of the clouds, 
god of the Chichimecs, 280 

Mobile, shell-heap 50 miles from, 48 

Monkey, found fossil in Brazil, by 
Lund, 25 

Monks' Mound, 103 

Monte Cuyo, near Yalahao, the work 
of man, 82 

Montezuma valley, ancient ruins in, 
217 

Mounds, alluded to by the Spaniards, 
80 ; first specially noticed by Car- 
ver (1776) and Harte (1791), 80 ; 
Breckenridge (1814) wrote about 
them, 80 ; scientifically described 
by Squier and Davis, 80 ; the 
mounds described, 81, 83 ; near 
Campana (Buenos Ayres), 83, 84. 

classification of, 87, 88 ; defen- 
sive works, 88 ; modern cities on 
the sites, of, 88 ; at Bourneville 
(Ohio), 89 ; at Fort Hill (Ohio), 89, 
90 ; in Clarke county (Ohio), 90 ; 
Clark's works in Ross county 
(Ohio), 91 ; along the Big Harpeth 
and Great Miami rivers, 91 ; Miam- 
isburgh mound, 92 ; Fort Ancient, 
92 ; on Lookout Mountain, 92 ; 
Aztalan, Rock river (Wisconsin), 
92, 93 ; at Greenwood (Tennessee), 
94 ; at Sandy-Woods settlement 
(Missouri), 95 ; on Little River, 96 ; 
near Juigalpa, (Nicaragua), 97 ; gen- 



eral form of the mounds (for de- 
fence) of the Mississippi valley, 97; 
erected as permanent fortifications, 
97, 98 ; among the Indians, 98 ; at 
Newark (Ohio), 99 ; at Chillicothe 
(O.), 100 ; at Hopetown (O.), 100 ; 
at Liberty (O.), 100 ; at Circleville 
(O.), 101 ; near Black Run, Ross 
county (O.), 101 ; as temples, 
101 ; at Marietta (O.), 102 ; at 
Cahokia (Illinois), 103 ; at Seltzer- 
town, 103 ; at New Madrid, 
104 ; at Matontiple, 105 ; on 
the Etowah river, 105 ; the Mes- 
sier mound (Georgia), 106 ; the 
pyramid of Koleemokee, 106 ; in the 
Cumberland valley (Tennessee), 
106 ; at Olympia, (Washington Ter- 
ritory), 106 ; at Florence (Alabama), 
106 ; as altars, 107 ; on the Kick- 
apoo river (Wisconsin), 108, 109 ; 
sepulchral mounds, 1 10; different 
positions of the bodies in, in, 112; 
at Chillicothe (O.), 112 ; at Madison- 
ville (O.). 113 ; at Davenport (la.), 
113 ; at Toolesborough (Iowa), 113; 
at Trenton (Missouri), 114; near 
Nashville (Tennessee), 115 ; at 
Grove creek (Virginia), 116; at 
Harrisonville (Ohio), 116 ; in Utah, 
116; Big Mound (St. Louis), 117; 
Connett's mound (Ohio), 118 ; in 
Florida, 118 ; near Muscatine 
(Mississippi), 119 ; in Carroll coun- 
ty, (Illinois), 120 ; on the St. Pe- 
ter's river (Minnesota), 121 ; mounds 
representing animals, 123 ; almost 
confined to the Northern and West- 
ern States, 123 ; bird-shaped mound 
in Georgia, 123 ; at Pewaukee (Wis- 
consin), 123 ; in Dane county 
(Wisconsin), 124; "Alligator" 
mound, Granville (Ohio), 125; 
" Mastodon " mound, 125 ; animal- 
shaped mounds in Wisconsin, 126 ; 
snake-shaped mound on Brush 
creek (Ohio), 126 ; on the banks of 
the Wisconsin, 127 ; cross-shaped 
mounds, 129 ; boat-shaped mound 
on the Scioto, 129 ; mounds Obsid- 
ian in, 170 
Monuments of Mexico, Peru, and 
Central America, their resemblance 
to the temples and palaces of 
Egypt, 14 
Moreau river, mound city on, 186 
Moreno, paraderos in Buenos Ayres, 
54 



543 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



Morton's tables of capacities of In- 
dian skulls, 486 

Mound Builders, see also under " Pre- 
historic Americans " 

Mound Builders, their weapons, see 
" Weapons of the Mound Build- 
ers " 

Mound Builders in the Mississippi 
valley, 13 

cremation practiced amongst, 

in, 118, 119 

cannibalism amongst, 119 

irrigation canals built by, 129 

the ancestors of the Indians, 130, 

131 

sturdy smokers, 160 

method of executing their sculp- 
tures, 168 

their clothing, 177 

■ territory occupied by, 183 ; char- 
acteristics of, 183 ; did they disap- 
pear ? 183 ; or are the red Indians 
their descendants? 183, 184; all 
the mounds the work of a people in 
about the same stage of culture, 184 ; 
the Mound Builders must have long 
dwelt in the region, 184 ; symmetiy 
of some of the mounds as evidence 
that they were not built by the In- 
dians, 186, 187 ; this and similar 
arguments refuted by recent re- 
searches, 187 ; not improbable that 
sepulchral chambers were used by 
some Indians, 188 ; testimony of 
Spanish historians, 189 ; the natives 
of Florida and the Mississippi val- 
ley lived in fortified towns at the 
time of the Spanish invasion, 189 ; 
traces of structures analogous to the 
mounds found among the Creeks 
and Natchez, 190 ; chunk yards, 
190 ; mounds in Western New York 
believed to have been erected by 
the Iroquois, 192 ; apparent differ- 
ences in structure between the 
Mound Builders and the Indians 
tend to disappear on more thorough 
examination, 194 ; resemblance of 
the Mound Builders to the Aztecs, 
196 ; estimates as to their antiquity, 
196, 197 

■ bones of, 481 ; skull from New 

Madrid, Missouri, 482 
Muirakitan the, 473 
Mummies in caves, in California, 

Mexico, and Peru, 69 
Mummy from Chacota, 504 
Mylodon, 15, 17 



Nahuatl (the), race, 11 

cradle of the, 13 

Neanderthal skull, comparison of, 

with some skulls from the mounds, 

483 

Nebraska, bones of the mastodon 

mixed with stone weapons, found 

in, 37 

mounds in, 82 

New Almaden mines (Cal.), skeletons 

and stone hammers in, 39 
Newark (Ohio), mounds near, 99 
New England, visited by Northmen, 1 
Newfoundland, its discovery, 52 ; 

shell-heaps, 47, 52 ; uninhabited 

when discovered, 52 
New Jersey, stone hammer from 

Pemberton, 22-24 
palaeolithic implements in, 19, 

20, 21 

flint instruments from, 171 

New Madrid (Missouri), mound at, 
104 

cup from, 150 

position of bodies in mound at, 

112 

vase from, 144 

■ skull from mound at, associated 

with tooth of a mastodon, 482 
New- Mexico, Indians of, 78 
veneration of the rattlesnake in, 

127 

New Orleans, human skull found 
beneath a buried cypress, 35 

its probable age, 35 

New York, discoveries at High Rock 
Spring (Saratoga), 74 

mounds in, 82-85 

Neyba (Peru), sculptured jaguar at 
entrance of cave near, 465 

Nezahualcoytl, poems of, 288 

Nicaragua shell-heaps, 47. 

mounds near Juigalpa, 97 

Oajaca (Province), caves in, 74 
Obsidian cut into knives, etc., by 

Mexicans, 169-170 ; in mounds, 

170 

Ohio, bones of the mastodon, mam- 
moth, etc., between beds of glacial 
clay, 18 

Shelter cave, 71 ; cave in 

Summit county, 72 
Ash cave, 72 

The centre of mound building, 

84 

mounds in Athens county, 86 

mound at Fort Hill, 89, 90 



INDEX. 



549 



Ohio, mound in Clarke county, go, gi 

" Clark's " works, Ross county, 

91 

mounds at Bourneville, 8g 

mounds at Newark, gg 

at Chillicothe, at Hopetown, at 

Liberty, 100 ; at Circleville, 101 ; 
near Black Run, Ross county, 101 

mounds at Chillicothe, Ports- 
mouth, Marietta, 102 

sepulchral mounds at Madison- 

ville, 113 

Connett's mound, near Dover, 

118 

alligator mound at Granville, 

125 

snake-shaped mound on Brush 

creek, 126 

cross-shaped mounds in, I2g 

pottery jar from, 140 

heron-shaped pipe from, 163 

terra cotta figures in mounds 

near the Little Miami river, 167 

serpentine axes from, 170 

shell ornaments from mounds 

near the Little Miami, 172 
copper beads from Connett's 

mound, 174 

cloth in mounds of, 177 

low type skulls from certain 

mounds in; 484 
Ohio valley, mounds in, 80 
OJd Town shell-heap, its age, 67 
Ollantay-Tambo, fortress of, 416 
Olympia (Wash. Ter.), mounds near, 

106 

Oregon, shell-heaps, 51 

mounds in, 83 

skulls in the shell-heaps of, 480 

Origin of man in America, man not 
indigenous to the New World, 518, 
5ig ; he had extended his geographi- 
cal range over an immense area 
when his culture was of the lowest 
kind, 520 ; impossible to fix the 
date for this extension, 520 ; ad- 
vance of culture unequal in differ- 
ent localities, and dependent upon 
the environment, 520 ; origin of the 
family, 520 ; primitive man a slave 
to nature, 521 ; physical character- 
istics of American aborigines point 
toward affinities with people of the 
Pacific region, 522 ; emigration 
possible via Bering Strait, 522 ; also 
along the thirtieth south parallel, 
523 ; it probably took place by both 
routes, 523; nothing definite known 



of the spread of the emigrants ex- 
cepting the simple fact, 523 ; suc- 
cessive waves of migration, 523 ; 
emigrants differed somewhat in cul- 
ture, but this will not account for 
differences of culture in the pre-his- 
toric Americans, 524 ; stages of 
progress and changes, 524; lan- 
guage, 525 ; analogies in develop- 
ment of ideas and customs not very 
significant, 525 ; myths and legends, 
526 ; legends of the Toltecs and the 
Qquiches, Zamna, Cukulcan, and 
Quetzacoatl, 526 ; legends of the 
Shawnees, the Natchez, the Tusca- 
roras, 526 ; the Peruvians and 
Manco-Capac and Mama-GEllo, 527; 
tradition of the Guaranis, 527 ; 
other legends, 527 ; legends about 
floods, 527, 528, 52g, 530, 531 ; 
crude hypotheses regarding ances- 
tors of the Americans, 531 
Ornaments of the Mound Builders, 
171; near St. Clair River (Michigan), 
171 ; copper ornaments in Ten- 
nessee, 172 ; mica ornaments at 
Grave Creek (Virginia), 172 ; on 
the Little Miami (Ohio), 172 ; shell 
ornaments, 172 ; from Tennessee, 

173 ; from Mackinac Island, 173 ; 
shell pin from Ely mound (Virginia), 

174 ; polished stone ornaments, 
174 ; from S wanton (Vermont), 
174; copperheads from Connett's 
mound (Ohio), 174, 175; celts, 175 ; 
copper cross at Zollicoffer Hill, 175- 
177; copper turtles in Illinois, 177; 
skin with copper beads, 17S 

Osceola mound, human remains prov- 
ing cannibalism, 5g 

Otumba, resemblance of skulls from, 
to those of the Mound Builders, 
500 

Ouitotos, cannibalism among, 63 
Ozark mountains, ancient mining in 
the, 180 

Ozark hills, covered with cairns, 84 

Pachacamac, ruins of, 3g2 ; cemetery 
at, 433 

Palca (Peru), chulpa at, 425 
Palenque, monuments of, 318 
Pampas (the), human remains found 
in, 28, 2g, 30, 31 

theories of Darwin, Burmeister, 

Bravard, Ameghino, D'Orbigny, re- 
garding their geological age and 
method of formation, 31, 32 



55o 



PRE-HIS TORIC A M ERICA . 



Para (Brazil), intaglio, sculptures of, 

469 

Paraderos of Patagonia, triangular ar- 
row-points in, 27 

ol La Plata and Buenos Ayres, 54, 

55 

Parana (the), paradero on, 54 ; re- 
markable implements in the, 55 

discoveries of arms of plastic 

clay near the mouth of, 474 

Patagonia, ancient men of small stat- 
ure and dolichocephalic, 505 

arrow-points in the paraderos 

of, 27 ; some resemble European, 
others Peruvian types, 27 

discovery of a skull on the banks 

of the Rio Negro, 32 

shell-heaps, 47 

mounds in, 83 

deformation of Tehuelches, 

skulls from, 511 

Patagonians, their lofty stature, 3, 10 

Paucar-Tambo, tombs in the valley of, 
435 

Pemberton (New Jersey), stone ham- 
mer from, 22, 24 

Pennsylvania, ancient soapstone quar- 
ry at Christiana, Lancaster county, 
51 

cannibalism in, 61 

deposits of guano containing gold 

and silver images, 68 

caves as burial places, 69 

cave with human remains on the 

Susquehanna, 73 

mounds in, 81, 82 

mounds in Pike county, 86 

human remains enclosed in bas- 
kets, 114 

Peru, the country described, 387 ; the 
empire of the Incas, 388 ; Tavan- 
tisuyu the real name, 38S ; the 
region defined, 388 ; the origin of 
the Incas, 3S9 ; Aymaras and 
Qquichuas, 390 ; Manco-Capac, 
389, 391 ; Atahualpa, 391 ; landing 
of Pizarro, 391 ; ruins of Peru, 392 ; 
Pachacamac, 392 ; the Chimus, 394 ; 
Monte>inos, accounts of, 395 ; the 
city of Chimu, 395; "huacas," 
395, Obispo huaca, 396 ; huaca of 
Moche, 396 ; necropolis of Chimu, 
399 ; el presidio, 399 ; private 
houses, 400 ; Tiaguanaco, 400 ; 
monoliths, 401 ; of earlier date than 
the .Incas, 401 ; were the builders 
of Tiaguanaco related to the Qqui- 
chuas ? 406 ; Lake Titicaca, 406 ; 



island of Titicaca, 406 ; ruins on, 
407 ; buildings erected by Tupac - 
Yupanqui, the eleventh Inca, 408 ; 
island of Coati, ruins of, 409 ; 
island of Soto, 410 ; Cuzco, legend 
of its foundation, 410; difficulties 
of building, 411 ; ruins of, 411 ; 
grandeur of the Sacsahuaman, or 
fortress, 412 ; aqueduct, 413 ; the 
temple, 413 ; private dwellings of 
the Incas, 414 ; fortresses of Peru, 
415; ruins on the Ucayali, 415 ; for- 
tress of Ollantay-Tambo, 416 ; the 
tower of Calca, 417 ; the valley of 
Pauca-Tambo and the fortress of 
Pisac, 417 ; intihuatana, 417 ; the 
fortress of Piquillacta, 419 ; the 
fortress of Choccequirao, 419 ; roads 
of Peru, 421 ; reservoirs and ace- 
quias, 422 ; in the valley of La Ne- 
pana, 422 ; in Huanuco Viejo, 423 ; 
agriculture, 423 ; funeral rites, 424 ; 
sepulchres of the Aymaras, 424 ; 
megaliths, 424 , megaliths of Vil- 
cabamba and Chicuito, 424 ; mega- 
liths and chulpas at Acora, 424 ; 
chulpa near Palca, 425 ; chulpas 
of the basin of Lake Titicaca, 426 ; 
near Tiuhuani in the Escoma val- 
ley, 427 , burial customs at time of 
conquest, 427 ; burial customs on 
the Pacific coast, 428 ; mummies 
from Arica and the Bay of Cha- 
cota, 430 ; method of preserving the 
bodies, 430 ; contents of tombs, 
431 ; huaca at Iquique, 433 ; ceme- 
tery at Pachacamac, 433 ; caves as 
burial places, 435 ; Tan tarn a- M ar- 
ea, 435 ; tombs in the valley of 
Pauca-Tambo, 435 ; infernillos, 
435 ; mano Colorado, 435 ; religious 
ideas of the Peruvians, 435; Hanan- 
pacha and Urupacha, 436; nature 
worship and inferor gods, 436 ; a 
Deus ignotus, 437 ; human sacrifice, 
437 ! government of the Incas, 438 ; 
the curacas, 438 ; penal laws, 439 ; 
marriage. 439 ; property, 440 ; do- 
mestic animals, 440 ; dwellings, 
441 ; results of the form of govern- 
ment, 441 ; pottery, 442 ; resem- 
blance to early European pottery, 
444; vases from Chimbote and San- 
ta, 445 ; the silvador, 446 ; musical 
instruments, 449 ; cloth, 449 ; the 
art of dyeing, 449 ; mines and 
mining, 450 ; the jewellers' art, 
450; iron unknown, 451; copper 



INDEX. 



551 



implements, weapons, 452 ; batons, 
453 ; Pintados or insci-iptions, 453 ; 
Peruvians unacquainted with any 
system of writing at time of con- 
quest, 456 ; quipos, 457 ; means of 
transmitting the orders of the Incas 
458 

Peru, resemblance of its ancient 

monuments to those of Egypt, 14 
traditions regarding convulsions 

of nature in, 17 

mounds in, 83 

Peruvians. (See also under ' ' Pre-his- 

toric Americans.") 
Pewaukee (Wisconsin), animal-shaped 

mounds at, 123 
Phallic cultus in the New World, 159 
Piauhy (Brazil), intaglio sculptures of, 

469 

Pictography, of the Cliff Dwellers, 
246 ; on boulders in Arizona, 247 ; 
on the banks of the San Juan, 248 ; 
near the MacElmo, 248 ; near the 
Pecos ruins, 248 ; on the Puerco 
and Zuhi rivers, 249 ; near Salt 
Lake City, 249 ; in Licking valley, 

250 ; in Cuyahoga and Belmont 
counties, 250 ; in Vermont, 250 ; 
in Nicaragua, 250 ; in Oajaca, 

251 ; in Sonora, 251 ; in Colum- 
bia, 251 ; in Venezuela, 251 ; on 
the Isthmus of Panama, 251 ; in 
Nevada and California, 251 ; in 
Tennessee, 254 ; in South America, 
254 ; in Africa, 252, 253, 254 

Piedras Pintadas, 470 

Pinart, skull discovered by, in a 
tumulus near the Casa-Grande of 
Montezuma, 499 

Piquillacta, fortress of, 419 

Pisac, fortress of, 417 

Platycnemia, among the Mound 
Builders, 492, 493 ; its possible 
cause, 494 ; among the early Euro- 
peans, 494 

Popol Vuh (the), 144 

Porcelain in the Tula ruins, 356 

Porto Seguro, landing of Cabral 
at, 9 

Portuguese, part taken by, in the dis- 
covery of the New World, 8 

Potato River (Missouri), mastodon and 
arrow-points near, 37 

Tottery of the Cliff Dwellers and the 
inhabitants of the pueblos, 240 ; 
great quantity of, 241 ; its superior- 
ity to that of the Mound Builders, 
242 ; jar found in Utah, 242 ; it 



was baked, 243 ; and covered with 
a varnish, 243 
Pottery of the inhabitants of the 

pueblos, its decoration, 244 
Pottery of the Peruvians, 442 
Pottery, weapons, and ornaments : 
— Pottery among the first inven- 
tions of the human race, 133 ; 
moulded on gourds in Florida, 134 ; 
in the mounds of St. Louis, 135 ; 
at Sandy Woods, 136 ; in Michigan, 
136 ; in Vermont, 136, 137 ; Amer- 
ican pottery superior to European, 
136 ; method of baking, 137 ; em- 
ployment of moulds, 138 ; size of 
the pots, 138 ; the potter's wheel 
unknown, 138 ; bottle in Missouri, 

139 ; in Japan, 139 ; jar in Ohio, 

140 ; vase in Arkansas, 141 ; means 
of coloring, 141 ; vase in sepul- 
chral mound in Missouri, 142 ; or- 
namentation of, 142, 143 ; vase at 
New Madrid (Missouri), 144 ; vase 
in child's grave, Tennessee, 145 ; 
vase from Missouri grave, 146 ; 
vase with handles from Tennessee, 

147 ; cooking pot from Missouri, 

148 ; vessel with spout from Mis- 
souri, 148 ; vessel from Missouri, 

149 ; basins from, 149, 150 ; cup 
from New Madrid (Missouri), 150 ; 
in sepulchral mounds in Missouri, 
151 ; ditto, in Tennessee, 151 ; ditto, 
in Mississippi, 151 ; pipe from Ten- 
nessee, 152 ; ditto, from Missouri, 
152; red vase, with snake, from 
Missouri, 153; " bear "-shaped vase 
from Tennessee, 154; pig-shaped 
vase, 155 ; fish-shaped vase, 155; 
vases with representations of men, 
156 ; from Belmont (Missouri), 156 ; 
from New Madrid (Missouri), 157; 
few indecent objects among, 159 ; 
superiority of, to that of Swiss Lake 
Dwellers, 159 ; soapstone pipe, 161 ; 
pipe representing a wild cat, 162 ; 
ditto, a woodpecker (?), 162 ; ditto, 
an elephant, 163 ; ditto, a heron, 
163 ; pipes from Mound City, 164 ; 
from Connecticut, Virginia, Mis- 
souri, Indiana, 164, 165 ; pipe- 
stems in Ohio, California, Massa- 
chusetts, Mississippi valley, Ver- 
mont, 165 ; images in Tennessee, 
167 ; near the Little Miami river 
(Ohio), 167 ; serpentine cups from 
California, 168 , dishes from verte- 
brae of Cetacea, 168 ; jar from near 



5- 



PRE-HIS TORIC A M ERICA . 



the Tallahatchee river (Mississippi), | 
16S ; human masks in stone, 168 

're-historic Americans, of the same 
type as those of Europe and Asia, 15 

phases of their civilization 

analogous to that of the Euro- 
peans, 476 ; paucity of their rel- 
ics, 476 ; numerous errors resulting 
from excavations by untrained men, 
477 ; skull from near Denver (?), 
477 ; Amegbino's discoveries of hu- 
man bones with the remains of the 
glyptodon, etc., in the La Plata 
pampas, 477 ; discoveries near Pon- 
timelo, in Buenos Ayres, 478 ; con- 
temporaneity of man and the glyp- 
todon not, however, thoroughly 
proven, 47S ; the skull of Lagoa 
Santa (Brazil) described, 478 [a 
similar skull found at Rock Bluff, 
Illinois, 479] ; remarks on the La- 
goa-Santa skull by Lund and De 
Quatrefages, 479, 4S0 ; skulls in 
shell-heaps on the California and 
Oregon coasts, 480 ; skulls in stea- 
tite quarry on island of Santa Cata- 
lina, 4S1 ; skulls in Florida shell- 
heaps, 4S1 ; bones of the Mound 
Builders, 4S1 ; skull associated with 
tooth of a mastodon, from mound 
at New Madrid, Missouri, 482 ; the 
discovery of fragments of decorated 
pottery casts doubts upon the an- 
tiquity of the skull, 482 ; skulls of 
low type found in some mounds, 
483 ; comparison of Stimpson's 
mound skull and Dunleith (Indiana) 
mound skull with the Neanderthal 
skull, 483 ; skulls from Kennicott 
mound of degraded type, 483 ; skulls 
of analogous type from Missouri, 
Dakota, Chihuahua (Mexico), and 
Ohio, 484 ; prominent eyebrows and 
retreating foreheads in skulls from 
Wisconsin, Mississippi valley, and 
Tennessee mounds, 485 ; analogous 
remains from the mounds near the 
great lakes, on the Red River, and 
Detroit River, 485 ; skulls from Cir- 
cular mound, from Western mound, 
and from Fort Wayne mound, 485 ; 
some skulls of very small cubical 
contents, 486 ; skulls differing 
greatly in shape often found in same 
mound, 4S7 ; some instances, 487 ; 
some measurements of skulls by 
Farquharson, Carr, and Jones, 487, 
4S8 ; two categories of skulls from 



Missouri, 488 ; individual variations, 
488 ; skull of a child from Atacama 
and from Alabama, 4S8 ; Morton's 
theory of the unity of physical type 
of the Americans, 48S ; the form of 
skull has but a very generalized 
value, 489 ; the Scioto skull from 
Chillicothe, and different theories 
relating thereto, 489, 490 ; some 
measurements of the capacity of the 
skulls of the Mound Builders, 490 ; 
capacity of the skulls of modern 
races, 491 ; the Mound Builders 
seem to stand low in the comparison, 

491 ; exceptional large skulls from 
Tennessee stone graves, 491 ; from 
an Illinois mound, 491 ; the ex- 
tremely small " Albany skull," 491 ; 
extremes vitiate averages, 492 ; cra- 
nial capacity not proof of high in- 
tellectuality, nor vice versa., 492 ; 
platycnemia among American races, 

492 ; this form of tibia occurs in 
30 £ of the remains from mounds in 
Kentucky, Missouri, Michigan, and 
Indiana, and from the Florida shell- 
heaps, also from Mammoth Cave, 

493 ; it also occurs in bones from 
the Red River and Fort Wayne 
mounds, and the tumuli of the St. 
Clair River, those near Lake Huron, 
on the one on Chamber's Island 
(Wisconsin), 493 ; from near the 
Detroit River, 494 ; causes of 
platycnemia, 494 ; an indication of 
a low type of physical structure, 

494 ; platycnemia in Europe, 494 ; 
perforation of the humerus consid- 
ered a racial characteristic, 495 ; 
frequently noticed in bones from the 
mounds, 495 ; considered a charac- 
teristic of physical inferiority, but it 
appears difficult to establish a gen- 
eral law. 495 ; but one skeleton out 
of ten found at Fort Wayne has 
perforation of the olecranon fossa, 

495 ; a tendency to perforation 
seems to diminish among European 
races, 496 ; Mound Builders said to 
have long arms, but this contradicted 
by facts, 496 ; their variation in 
stature, 496; seven-foot skeleton 
from stone grave in Tennessee, and 
skeletons exceeding six feet in 
height found in Utah and Michi- 
gan, 496 ; but as a rule the Mound 
Builders were not above ordinary 
size, and many of them were of 



INDEX. 



553 



small stature, 497 ; bones of the 
Cliff Dwellers, but few discovered, 
497 ; skull from the Chaco cafion 
(New Mexico), 497, 498 ; two skulls 
from near Abiquico (New Mexico), 
described by Dr. Bessels, 498 ; re- 
semblance of these to two skulls 
from Tennessee, 499 ; De Quatre- 
fages and Hamy on the ethnic 
identity of the Mound Builders and 
Cliff Dwellers, 499 ; the builders of 
the Casas-Grandes probably of the 
same race, 499 ; Pinart's discoveries 
in a tumulus near the Casa-Grande 
of Montezuma, 499 ; skull from 
Teul, 499 ; type of mound crania 
no longer general, 500 ; analogies 
of mound crania with those of the 
ancient inhabitants of Anahuac ; 
skulls from tombs of Mexico, 
Otumba, and Tacuba, and Santiago- 
Tlatelolcoli, 500 ; crania of the 
Mayas as seen in bas-reliefs of Pal- 
enque, 500 ; artificially deformed, 

500 ; crania of the builders of the 
monuments in Yucatan and Hon- 
duras of a different type, 500 ; 
sculptures of Chichen-Itza, 500 ; 
artificial deformation of skulls 
amongst the Peruvians, three kinds 
of deformation practised, according 
to Gosse : the occipital, the elon- 
gated symmetrical, and the cunei- 
form, 501 ; small capacity of the 
crania from Ancon, from Chimu, 

501 ; table of cranial capacities, 

502 ; average capacity of Peruvian 
skulls according to Morton and 
Meigs and Squier, 502 ; races of 
Peru, the Chinchas, the Aymaras, 
the Huancas, 502 ; Rivero and 
Tschudi think that artificial defor- 
mation was confined to the Chin- 
chas, doubts about this, 502 ; diffi- 
culties in studying race-types 
greatly increased by intermixture of 
races, 503 ; skulls of a variety of 
shapes found at the castillo of the 
great Chimu by Squier, 503 ; Dr. 
Wilson admits only two distinct 
types of Peruvian skulls, 503 ; dif- 
ferences in skull types do not neces- 
sarily imply different races, 504 ; 
observations from mummies, 504 ; 
mummy from Chacota, 504 ; hair of 
the Peruvians of fine texture, prob- 
ably black in color, 504 ; false hair 
was worn by both men and women, 



505 ; mummied head of a man, 505, 

506 ; ancient men of Patagonia re- 
sembled the Eskimo, 505 ; dolicho- 
cephalic skulls from Brazil, 505 ; 
the Botocudos a dolichocephalic 
race, 505 ; they present analogies 
with the Eskimo, 505 ; were these 
people contemporaries of the Euro- 
pean paleolithic people? 506 ; syphi- 
lis amongst the Mound Builders 
and in Patagonia, 507 ; the Mayas 
acquainted with venereal affections, 
508 ; other diseases of the bones, 
508; Farquh arson describes a lesion 
which appears to have been cured, 
508 ; skulls bearing traces of ancient 
inflammation, from Tennessee, 508 
anchylosed vertebral column from 
the Aleutian Islands, collected by 
Dall, 508 ; hurts from traumatic 
causes not rare, 508 ; fractured Pe- 
ruvian skulls with evidence of recov- 
ery, 509 ; trepanned skull from Yu- 
cay valley, 509, 510 ; posthumous 
trepannings of frequent occurrence, 
509 ; hypotheses regarding these, 
509 ; trepanned skulls from Sable 
and Red River mounds and from 
mounds in Michigan, 510; trepan- 
ning only practised on adult males,. 
510 ; trepanned skulls in Europe, 
difficulty of comparing these with 
the American skulls, 511 ; skull de- 
formation practised by the Indians 
at time of conquest, 511 ; the cus- 
tom very ancient, 512 ; deformation 
practised by all the Maya races, 
512; idols with flattened heads, 
512 ; means employed, 512 ; by the 
Choctaws, by the Mosquitos, in 
Yucatan, 513; health nor intelli- 
gence apparently injured by this 
custom, 513 ; defoimation prac- 
tised in Europe and Asia, 513; in 
Oceanica, 514 ; in Fiance, defor- 
mation toulousaine, 515 ; was de- 
formation always voluntary ? 515. 
Conclusions. — The pre-historic 
American differs but little from the 
Indians, and there is no essential 
physical difference between him and 
the ancient European, 516 ; varie^ 
ties and migrations of the Ameri- 
cans, 5 

Pre-historic man, existence of man in 

the Quarternary period, 15 
contemporary of extinct animals, 

15 



554 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



Pre-historic man his weapons, 16 
his existence during glacial times, 

bones of, associated with those of 

extinct animals, 23 

his antiquity in America, accord- 
ing to Lund, 26 

his remains in the Sumidouro 

cave connected with the reindeer 
period in Europe and not with the 
mammoth, 26 

his remains associated with those 

of the extinct mammalia in Buenos 
Ayres, 28, 29 

his skull found on the banks of 

the Rio Negro (Patagonia), it is arti- 
ficially deformed and shows traces 
of periostitis, 33 

skeletons from the ancient ceme- 
teries of Patagonia, 33 

in Louisiana, 34, 35 

in Missouri, 36 ; in Iowa, 37 ; in 

Nebraska, 37 ; in the Sierra Nevada 
region, 37 

in California, 37, 39, 45 

in Arizona, 37 

in Wyoming, 39 

his remains found in the shell- 
heaps, 51, 52, 53 

a cannibal in Brazil, 53 

a cannibal in Florida, 58, 59 ; in 

New England, 59 

his remains in caves in Cali- 
fornia, Mexico, Peru, Virginia, 
Tennessee, Kentucky, 69 

on the Gasconade River (Mis- 
souri), 70, ; in Shelter Cave (Ohio), 
71 ; in Ash Cave (Ohio), 72 

in Summit county (Ohio), 72 ; in 

Pennsylvania, 73 

probably inhabited wigwams 

when caves were not available, 76 

skeletons in the ruins of Aztalan 

(Wisconsin), 93 

skeletons in mounds at Sandy- 

W T oods settlement (Missouri), 95 

a skull enclosed in pottery, 104, 

Prescott, cannibalism in Mexico, 61 

Pueblos, described, 200 ; Taos, 201 ; 
Acoma, 201 ; estufas, 204 ; ob- 
servation towers, 214 

in Montezuma Valley, 217 ; on 

the Rio de Chelly, 218 

on the La Plata, 222 ; Casa- 

Grande of the Rio Gila, 223 ; Casas- 
Grandes in Chihuahua, 225 

Pueblo Bonito (Pintado), 228 ; 



Pueblo Bonito, 229 ; P. Hungo 
Pavie, 232 ; P. Una Vida, 233 ; P. 
Weje-Gi, 233 ; P. Pehasca-Blanca, 
233 ; P. Arroyo, 233 ; P. Alto, 234 

P. Chettro-Kettle, 234 ; on Las 

Animas river, 236 ; on the Pecos 
river, 236 

government of, 240 

and cliff-dwellings, similarity of, 

255 . 
grouping of modern, 257 

Quacalaco, towns in the province of, 

discovered by Cortes, 7 
Quemada, ruins of, 361 
Quetzacoatl, legend of, 274 
Quinames, legend concerning the, 264 
Quipos, 457 

Quirigua (Guatemala), ruins at, 373 
Quito, conical mound, 400 feet high, 
near, 81 

Races and tribes of America in the 
sixteenth century, 3, 7, 13 

REFERENCES. 

Abbott (Dr.), " Primitive Industry," 
19; " Palaeolithic Implements in the 
Drift in the Valley of the Delaware, 
near Trenton, New Jersey," 19, 20, 
477 

Acosta (Jos. de), " Hist, natural y 
moral de las Yndias," 279, 303, 310, 
358, 380, 438 

■ " Compendio hist, del descu- 

brimiento y colonisacion de la 
Nueva Granada," 459, 460 

Adair, " Hist, of the American Indi- 
ans," 190, 513 

Aeler, " Stone Cist near Highland, 
Madison county (Illinois)," 497 

Agassiz, "A Journey in Brazil," 18, , 
466, 509 

"Album Mexicano," 225 

Alegre, " Hist, de la Compania de 
Jesus en Nueva Espaha," 280 

Allen, " La Tres Ancienne Ame'r- 
ique," 389 

Alzate y Ramirez, " Descripcion 
de las Antiguedades de Xochicalco," 
352, 353 

American Antiquarian, 84, 85, 119, 

130, 165, 485, 496 
Ameghino, " Inscripciones ante col- 

ombianas encontradas en la Repub- 

lica Argentina," 456 
" En Nueva Granada las inscrip- 



INDEX. 



555 



ciones geroglificas se encuentran a 

cado paso," 465 
Ameghino, " La Antiguedad del 

Hotnbre en el Plata," 3, 5, 6, 22, 

28, 29, 30, 54, 160, 455, 456, 461, 

465, 471, 472, 505, 506 
Andrews (Dr.), "Report, Peabody 

Museum," 86, 87, 118, 178 
" Evidences of the Antiquity of 

Man in the United States," 72 

in American Naturalist, 73 

" Explor. of Mounds in S. E. 

Ohio," 165 

" The Native Americans," 107 

Angrand, " Lettre sur les Antiquites 

de Tiaguanaco," 389, 390, 400, 405, 

419 

" Ann. del Museo Nacional," 279 
Anoutchine, " Rev. d' Anthr.," 504 
"Anthrop. Soc. of Washington, Pro- 
ceedings," 301 
"Archiv. Americana," 185 
Arias, " Antiguedades Zapotecas," 
368 

Aristotle, " Treatise on Govern- 
ment," 60 

Arleguy. " Chron. de la Prov. de S. 
Francisco de Zacatecas," 225 

Arriaga (Father), " Extirpacion de la 
Idolatria del Peru," 434 

Avendano, " Serm.," 527 

Bachelet, " Dictionaire des Sciences 
morales et politique," 60 

Baldwin, " Ancient America," 340. 

Bancroft, " Native Races," 5, 11, 12, 
37, 39. 5°. 5L 64, 82, 85, 93, 101, 106, 
137, 142, 146, 159, 160, 170, 180, 
181, 223, 224, 227, 243, 261, 262, 
264, 266, 272, 273, 274, 276, 278, 
283, 284, 285, 287, 294-, 299, 306, 
313, 318, 319, 322, 330, 333, 335, 
337, 350, 363. 376, 378, 511, 528 

Bandelier (A. F.), "Report on the 
Ruins of the Pueblo of Pecos, 127, 
204, 236, 238, 239, 241, 248. 

' ' On the Special Organization and 

Mode of Government of the Ancient 
Mexicans," 306 

" Arch. Hist, of America," 351 

"Report, Peabody Museum," 

285, 309. 3io, 313, 3i6 

" Rep., Am. Assoc.," 497 

Barber, " Cong, des Americanistes," 
200 

PSaril, " La Mexique," 82 
Barrandt, " Smith's Rep.," 186 
Bartlett, " Personal Narrative of 



Explorations in Texas, New Mex- 
ico, California, Sonora, and Chi- 
huahua," 78, 223, 225, 247 

Bastian, " Zeitschrift der Gesell- 
schaft filr Erdkunde," 465 

Becker, "On the Migrations of the 
Nahuas," 271 

Bergeron, " Hist, de la Navigation," 
9 

Berthoud, "Phil. Acad. Nat. Sci." 

Bertillon (J.) Nature, 446 

Bertrand and Mackinley, "Coni- 
cal mounds in Georgia," 106 

" Travels in North America," 

106 

Bertrand, " Bull Soc. Anth.," 494 
Bessels (Dr.), " The Human Re- 
mains found among the Ancient 
Ruins of S. W. Colorado and New 
Mexico," 498 

"Congres des Americanistes, "499 

Birch, "Ancient Pottery," 134, 443 
" Bird-shaped mounds in Putnam 

county, Georgia," 123 
Blake (Carter), "Journal of the 

Anth. Soc. of London," 494 
Blake (J.), " Notes on a Collection 
from the Ancient Cemetery of the 
Bay of Chacota, 430, 504, 505 
Bollaert ( W.), "Antiquarian, Eth- 
nological, and other Researches in 
New Granada, Ecuador, Peru, and 
Chili," 388, 421, 423, 430, 433, 435, 

443. 447, 453, 455, 459 

" Memoirs of the Anthropo- 
logical Society of London," 379 

Bordier, " Bull. Soc. Anth.," 468, 
506, 516 

Boturini, " Idea de una nueva hist, 
general de la America Septentrio- 
nal," 285 

Boyle, "A Ride Across the Conti- 
nent," 83, 97 

Brebeuf (Father Jean de), "Voyage 
dans la nouvelle France occidental," 
62 

Breckenridge, " Views of Louisi- 
ana," 80, 117 

Brinton, " Notes on the Floridian 
Peninsula," 48 

" The Myths of the New 

World," 280 

Broca, " Bull. Soc. Anth.," 3, 494 

" Rev. d'Anth.," 510, 511 

Brtjhl (Dr.), Cincinnati Lancet and 
Clinic, 508 

Bry, " Bresil Voy. de J. Stadius He- 
sous," 61 



556 



PRE-HIS TORIC A M ERICA . 



Bry, In " Collectiones perigrinatio- 

num in Indiam Occidentalem," 61 
" Voyage de Joannes Lerus de 

Burgundus," 61 
" Bulletin Buffalo Soc. Nat. Hist., 

1877," 177 
"Bull, Soc. Anth. 432, 467, 470, 

475, 477- 

Burgoa, "Geografica descripcion de 
la parte septentrionnale del Polo 
Artico de la America," 300, 363, 
364, 366 

"Burial Mounds in Ohio," Am. Ant., 
in 

Burkart(J.), "Aufenthal und Reisen 

in Mexico," 361 
Burmeister, " Congres d'Anthropolo- 

gie et dArcheologie prehistoriques," 

474 

Burton (R.), " Highlands of Brazil," 
466 

Busk, " Bull. Soc. Anth.," 494 

Carr (Lucien), " Recent Explora- 
tions of Mounds near Davenport, 
Iowa," 488, 490, 491 

" Observations on the Crania 

from the Stone Graves of Tennes- 
see," 188, 508 

" Rep., Am. Assoc.," 488. 

" Mounds of the Mississippi 

Valley," 13 r, 132 

"Carta, segunda de relacion ap. Lo- 
renzana," 7 

Castaneda, " Voy. de Cibola," 208. 

Castano de la Cosa (G.), " Memo- 
ria del Descubrimiento que — hizo 
en el Nuevo Mexico," 237 

Catlin, " Illustrations of the Man- 
ners, Customs and Conditions of the 
North American Indians," 98, 190, 
5ii 

Chantre, " Revue dAnthrop., 1881," 
160 

Charnay, " Cites et Ruines Amer- 
icaines," 306, 321, 334, 335, 337, 
338, 341, 349, 500 

" Bull. Soc. Geogr.," 322, 324, 

356, 536 

"Revue d'Ethnographie," 347, 

348 

Childe (E. Lee), Correspondent ',- 239 
"Chronica de la Orden de N. P. S. 

Aug.," 302 
Churchill, " Coll. of Voyages," 285 
Clavigero, "Hist. Antigua de Me- 

jico," 164 
" Storia Anticadel Messico," 225, 



261, 276, 282, 285, 287, 288, 300, 
301, 302, 307, 308, 349, 350, 363, 
378, 507 

Clavigero, "Storia del la California," 
73 

Cockburn, "A Journey Overland from 
the Gulf of Honduras to the Great 
South Sea," 138 

Cogolludo, " Hist de Yucatan," 269, 
270, 349, 526 

Conant, " Footprints of Vanished 
Races," 69, 87, 116, 117, 120, 127, 
L30, 135, 139, 146, 181, 228, 484, 
488, 515, 517 

Congress Arch, de Kazan, 60 

Cong, des Am., 485 

Contributions to North American Eth- 
nology, 130, 522 

Cook, " Voyage to the Pacific Ocean," 
134 

Cordelier (P.Thevet), "Les singular- 

ites de la France Antarctique autre- 

ment nommee Amerique," 521 
Cortereal, "Voy. aux Indes Occi- 

dentales," 166 
Cortes, " Cartas y Relaciones al Em- 

perador Carlos V.," 269, 270, 288, 

308, 309. 358 
Cox, a remarkable ancient stone fort 

in Clarke county (Ohio), 90 
Crevaux, "Congr. Preh. de Paris," 63 
CUSHING (Frank), Century Magazine, 

239 

Darwin, " Voyage of the Beagle, "430 

D'Anghiera (Peter Martyr), " De 
Rebus Oceanicis et Orbe Novo," 
62, 164, 267, 268, 271, 361, 379 

Dall (W. PL), remains of later pre- 
historic man from the caves of the 
Catherina Archipelago, Alaska Ter- 
ritory, 66, 508 

De Bourbourg (Brasseur), " Hist, 
des Nations Civilizees du Mexique 
et de TAmerique Centrale," 82, 93, 
261, 263, 269, 283, 284, 286, 288, 
300, 302, 335, 336, 366, 381, 508, 
530 

" Recherches sur les ruines de 

Palenque avec les dessins de Wal- 

deck," 11, 318, 330 
" Voy. sur l'lsthme de Tehuan- 

tepec," 251 
Debret, " Voy. pitt. et hist, au Bresil 

depuis 1816 jusqu'en 1831," 469 
De Castelnau (F.), "Exp. dans les 

parties centrales de TAmerique du 

Sud,"466 



INDEX. 



557 



De Charency, " Essai de dechiffre- 

ment d'une inscription palenque- 

enne," 379 
" Recherches sur le Codex 

Troano," 379 
D'Eichtal, " Etudes sur les origines 

Bouddhiques," 527 
De Esparza, " Informe presentado al 

Gobierno," 361 
De Fossey (Math.), " Le Mexique," 

385 

De Hass (W.), "Arch., of the Mis- 
sissippi Valley," 129, 137 

Am. Ass. Trans. 

De Leon (Cieca). " Primera parte de 
la chronica del Peru," 451 

De Longperier, "Notice des Monu- 
ments exposee dans la Salle des 
Antiquites Americaines," 445 

Del Rio (A), " Descripcion del ter- 
reno y poblacion antigua," 318, 324 

De Martius, " Beitrage zur Ethno- 
graphic und Sprachenkunde Amer- 
ikas zumal Brasiliens," 466 

Demmin, "Guide l'amateur de fai- 
ences ou de porcelaines," 443 

De Neuwied (Prince Max), " Reise 
nach Bresilien," 466 

Denis (F.), " Le Bresil, Univers Pit- 
toresque," 466, 469 

De Quatrefages and Hamy, 
" Crania Ethnica," 480, 489, 499, 
500, 501 

De Quatrefages, Cong. Anth. de 

Moscou, 469 
De Rivero et Tschudi (E.), " An- 

tiguedades Peruanas," 3S8, 400, 430, 

502 

" Die Kechua Sprache," 388, 

390 

De Rosny (L.), " Essai de dechiff re- 
men t de l'ecriture hieratique de 
lAmerique Centrale," 379 

De Sartiges (Comte), in Rev. des 
Deux Mondes, 411, 419 

Description of a deformed fragmentary 
skull in an ancient quarry cave at 
Jerusalem, 514 

De St. Hilaire (A.) "Voyage dans 
les provinces de Rio de Janeiro et de 
Minas Geraes," 466 

Desjardins (E.), " Le Perou avant la 
Conquete Espagnole," 388, 392,400, 

404, 419. 424^435, 436. 438, 443, 
460, 527 

De Souza (Pompeu), " Compendio de 
Geographia geral e especial do 
Brazil," 466 I 



De Varnhagen (F.), " Hist, geral 
do Brasil," 466, 467 

DE VlLLAGUTlERRE Y SOTOMAYOR 

(Juan), "Hist, de la Conquista de 

la Province de el Itza," 379 
Diaz (Bernal), " Hist. Verdadera de 

la Conquista de la Nueva Espana," 

309. 358. 359 
" Relatione fatta per un gentil'- 

huomo del Signor F. Cortese," 358 
Dominguez and ESCALANTE, " Diario 

y Derrotero Santa Fe a Monterey," 

1776, 256 

D'Orbigny, " L'Homme Americain," 
388, 39O, 467 

Dupaix (Captain), " Relation des tfois 
expeditions ordonnees en i8o5-'6-'7, 
pour la recherche des antiquites du 
pays notamment de celles de Mitla 
et de Palenque," 318 

Du Pratz, " Hist, of Louisiana," 
526 

Duran (Father), "Hist. Ant. de la 

Nueva Espana," 351 
" Hist, de las Indias de la Nueva 

Espana," 291, 297, 308, 309, 310 

" El Conquistador Anonimo," 307 
Emory, " Notes of a Military Recon- 
noissance from Fort Leavenworth in 
Kansas to San Diego in California," 
237 

Ensayo de un estudio comparativo 
entre la Pyramide Egyptias y Mexi- 
canas," 14 

Escudero, " Noticias del Estado de 
Chihuahua," 225 

Espinosa (Cabajal), "Hist, de Mex- 
ico," 361 

Evers (E), "Ancient Pottery of Mis- 
souri," 135 

"Contributions to the Archae- 
ology of Missouri," 140 

Farquharson (Dr.), "Observations 
on the Crania from some Stone 
Graves in Tennessee," 487 

" Proc. Am. Assoc.," 507, 508 

"Report, Peabody Museum," 487 

Fegueux, " Les Ruines de la Quem- 
ado," 361 

Fischer (H.), "Sur l'origine des 
pierres dites d'Amazone et sur ce 
peuple fabuleux," 473 

Fitzroy, "Voyage of the Adventure 
and the Beagle," 63 

Flint (Dr.), " Report, Peabody Muse- 
um." 



558 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



Fontaine, 1 ' How the World was 

Peopled," 284 
Force, " A quelle Race appartenaient 

les Mound Builders," 92, 103, 195 

Cong, des Am. , 239 

Foster, " Description of Samples of 

Ancient Cloth from the mounds of 

Ohio," 177 
" Prehistoric Races of the U. S. 

of America," 35, 36, 50, 104, 126, 

284, 480, 481 

" Mississippi Valley," 81 

" Report, Am. Assoc.," 482 

Foster and Whitney, " Rep. on 

the Geol. of the Lake Superior Re- 
gion," 178 
Friederickstahl (Baron von), " Les 

Monuments du Yucatan," 335 
" Nouv. Annales des Voyages," 

341 

Frcebel, "Seven Years' Travel in 
Central America," 83 

Galindo, "Am. Ant. Soc. Trans.," 

330, 332 

Gallatin, " Am. Ant. Soc. Trans.," 

292 

" Nouv. Ann. des Voyages," 70 

" Trans. Am. Ethn. Soc," 6 

Garcilasso de la vega, " Los Corn- 
en tarios reales que tratan del origen 
de los Incas, reyes que fueron del 
Peru," 154, 164, 388, 395, 416, 437, 
439 

" Hist, de la Conquete de la 

Floride, ou Relation de ce qui s' est 
passe au Voyage de Ferdinand de 
Soto pour la Conquete de ce Pays," 
189 

" Hist. des Incas, rois de 

Perou," 388, 412, 515 

" History of Florida," 80 

Gaudry, " Les Enchainements du 

Monde Animal," 16 
Gervais, in Journal de Zodlogie, 28 
Gillman (H.), "Add. Facts Concern- 
ing Artificial Perforation of the Cra- 
nium in Ancient Mounds in Mich- 
igan," 509 

" Rep., Am. Assoc.," 492, 493 

" Report, Peabody Museum," 

136 

" The Ancient Men of the Great 

Lakes," 485 
" Ancient Works of Isle Royal," 

*79 - 

" Explorations in the vicinity of 

Aledo, Florida," ill 



Goguet, " Memoire touchant V eta- 
blisement d' une mission chretienne 
dans le troisieme monde, autrement 
appele la Terre Australe," 134 

Gomara, " Hist, de Mexico, " 270, 
276, 277, 279, 301, 305, 312, 358, 
378, 507 

" Hist. gen. de las Indias," 298 

Gosse, " Essai sur les deformations 

artificielles du crane," 501, 503, 504 

514 

Greenhalgh, 193 

Grijalva (Juan de), " Cronica de la 
Orden de N. P. S. Augustin," 270 

discovery of the cross in Yuca- 
tan temples, 176 

Guevara, " Hist, del Paraguay, en 
col. Hist. Argentina," 527 

Guttler, " Naturforschung und 
Bibel." 

Habel (Dr.), "Investigations in 
Central and South America," 84, 

371 

" Smithsonian Contributions," 81, 

146, 152 
Hakluyt, " Voyages," 239 
Haldeman, "A Rock Retreat in 

Pennsylvania," 73 
letter of, 22 

Hamy, " Bull. Soc. Anth.," 333, 495. 
Hardy, " Indian Monachism," 342 

" Report, Peabody Museum," 59 

Harrison (Gen.), " Trans. Hist. Soc. 
. of Ohio," 185 

Hartt, "Archives of the National 

Museum of Rio -de Janeiro," 467 
" Geology and Physical Geogra- 
phy of Brazil," 466 

"Rep., Peabody Mus.," 56, 472 

Haynes, (H. W.), " The Argillite 
Implements found in the Gravels 
of Delaware River," 21 
Heller, " Reisen in Mexiko," 351 
Hellwald (F. von), " A quelle race 
appartenaient des Mound Builders," 
T 97 

Congres des Americanistes, 180 

" The American Migrations," 

272, 284 

Henderson (G.), " An Account of 
the British Settlement of Hon- 
duras," 83 

Hennepin (P.), " Description de la 
Louisiane," 62 

Henshaw (H. W.), 2d Ann .1 Rep. 
Bureau of Ethnology, Wash.,. 
1884, 162 



INDEX. 



559 



Herrera, "Hist. Gen. de los 
Hechos de los Castillanos en las 
Islas y Tierra Firme del Mar 
Oceano," 176, 266, 268, 269, 270, 
302, 303, 309, 363, 364, 380, 438, 
507 

Heywood, "Expl. of the Aboriginal 
Remains in Tennessee," 176 

" Natural and Aboriginal His- 
tory of Tennessee," 159 

Hippocrates, " De Aeris, Aquis, et 
Locis," 513 

Hoffman (Dr.), " Ethn. Obs. on In- 
dians Inhabiting Nevada, California, 
and Arizona," 227, 244, 254 

' ' Report on the Chaco Cranium, " 

497 

Holmes, " Report on the Ancient 
Ruins of S. W. Colorado," 202, 208, 
210, 215, 222, 245, 247, 248 

Hubbard, " Am. Ant. ," 487 

Humboldt, " Essai pol. sur le roy. 
de la Nouvelle Espagne," 350 

■ "Personal Travels to the Equi- 
noctial Regions of America," 114 

".Researches concerning the In- 
stitutions and Monuments of the 
Ancient Inhabitants of America," 
284 

" Vues des Cordilleres et Mon. 

des Peuples indigenes de 1' Amer- 

ique T " 350, 352, 388, 459 

"Views of the Cordilleras," 264 

' ' Voyage aux regions equinoc- 

tiales," etc., 459 
Hutchinson, "Two Years in Peru," 

388, 393 

Huxley, " Man's Place in Nature," 
35 

" Isographia fisica y politica de los 
Estados Unidos de Colombia," 459 

Ixtlilxochitl " Hist. Chichimeca," 
261, 272, 279, 281, 282, 283, 285, 
290, 310 

" Relaciones," 264, 272, 276, 

277, 291, 303, 305, 309, 315 

Jackson, "Ruins of S. W. Colo- 
rado," 203, 206, 217, 219, 229, 235 

"Geol. Rep. to U. S. Gov't," 

178 

J affray, in Nature, 457 

" La Tour du Monde," 459 

"Voyage a la Nouvelle Gre- 
nade," 459, 461 
Jaravillo (Juan), " App. VI., 
Ternaux Compans," 237 



Jones, " Antiquities of the Southern 
Indians and Georgia Tribes," 48, 
190, 254 

" Explorations of the Aboriginal 

Remains of Tennessee," 91, 114, 
115, 485, 496, 507, 511, 

"Smiths. Contrib.," 159, 167, 

168, 196, 490 

Jomard, "Bull. Soc. Geog. de 
Paris," 320 

Juarros (Domingo), " A Statistical 
and Commercial History of Guate- 
mala," 330 

" Plist. of the Kingdom of 

Guatemala," 266 

Kingsborough "Ant. of Mexico," 
262, 264, 272, 276, 281, 282, 285, 
287, 288, 291, 298, 303, 307, 313, 
3i8, 350 

Knapp, "Ancient Mining on Lake Su- 
perior," 179 

Koster, " Voyage dans la par tie sep- 
tentrionale du Bresil depuis 1809 
jusqu'en 1815." 

Lacerda and Peixotto, " Archivos 
do Museo Nacional," 466, 46S 

" Contribucoes ao estudo an- 
thropologic© das Rajas indigenas do 
Brazil," 23, 466 

Landa (Bishop of Merida), " Rela- 
cion de las Cosas de Yucatan," 266, 
341, 349, 378, 513, 526, 527 

Lapham, " The Antiquities of Wis- 
consin," 89, 91, 114, 126, 129 

Letter to Dr. Foster, 517 

" Smithsonian Contrib.," 87 

Larkin (Dr.), ' ' Rep., Peabody Mus.," 
118 

Las Casas, " Brevissima Relacion," 
309 

" Hist. Apol. delas Indias Occi- 

dentales," 298, 358, 378, 427 
Leconte, "Cremation Amongst the 

North American Indians," 120 
Leidy (J.), "Contributions to the 

Extinct Vertebrate Fauna of the 

Western Territories," 534 
" The Extinct Mammalian 

Fauna of Dakota and Nebraska, 

534 

Le Plongeon (Dr.), Letter of, 344 
Lewis and Clark, " Travels to the 

Source of the Missouri River," 85 
" Littorina Peruviana," 432 
Lopez (V. F.), " Les Races Aryennes 

du Perou," 388 



560 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



Lowenstern, " Mexico," 353 
Lubbock " L'Homme Preh.," 35 

" Prehistoric Times," 1S0 

Lyell, " Antiquity of Man," 34, 35 

" Second Visit to America in 

1846," 34, 47 
Lyon, " Journal of a Tour in the Re- 
public of Mexico," 361 
" Smiths. Contrib.," 111 

Magalhaes (Dr. Couto de) " O Sel- 

vagem," g 
Maguire, " Proc. Boston Soc. Nat. 

Hist.," 74 
Maler (F.), Nature, 369 
Marcoy (St. Cricq) " Voyage a Tra- 

vers l'Amerique du sud de l'Oce'an 

Pacifique a l'Ocean Atlantique," 

466 

Markham, " Cuzco and Lima," 393, 
416 

" Narratives of the Rites and 

Laws of the Incas," 437 

" The Tribes of the Empire of 

the Incas," 390 

Marquette, " Voyages et Decou- 
vertes du P. Marquette dans l'Am- 
erique Septentrionale," 254 

Maurel, "Bull. Soc. Anthr.," 27 

Mayer, " Mexico as It Was," 350 

McKee (Col.), " Habits of California 
Indians," 76 

" Memoires de la Soc. d'Hist. et de 
Geog. du Bresil," 479 

Mendjeta (G. de), "Hist. Eccl. In- 
diana," 310, 313, 314, 316 

Meyer, " Reise um die Erde ; Beit- 
rage zur Zoologie," 502 

Miles, " Trans. Ethn. Soc. of Lon- 
don," 435 

Milwaukee Advertiser, 1837, 92 

Molhausen (B.), " Tagebuch eine 
reise vom Mississippi nach dem 
Kusten der Sud See," 226, 249 

Molina, ' ' Vocabulerio in lengua Cas- 
tillana y Mexicana," 314 

" Vocabularis en lengua Castel- 

lana y Mexicana," 362 

" Relacion de las Fabulas y 

Ritos de los Ingas," 530 

Montesinos, " Memorias Antiguas 
historiales del Peru," 388 

Mem. hist, sur 1'ancien Perou," 

456 

Moreno, " Les Paraderos preh. de la 
Patagome," 27, 32, 33, 505 

Morgan (L. H.), " League of the 
Iroquois," 193 



Morgan (L. H.), " On the Ruins of 
a Stone Pueblo on the Animas 
River in New Mexico," 236 

" Rep., Peabody Mus.," 204 

521 

Morton, " Crania Americana ; or, A 
Comparative View of the Skulls of 
Various Aboriginal Nations of 
North and South America," 488, 
490, 500, 502, 503, 505 

Moure, (Dr.) "Les Indiens de la 
Province de Matto Grosso," 53 

Muller (F. W. v.), " Americanischen 
Urreligionen," 274 

" Reisen in den Vereinigten 

Staten, Canada, and Mexico," 289, 
368 

Nadaillac, " Les Premiers Homines 
et les Temps Prehistoriques," 424, 
483, 5io 

Nagera (Castaheda de), " Relation 
du Voy. de Cibola," 237, 243 

Nebel, " Viaje pittoresco y arqueo- 
logico sobre la rep. Mejicana," 352, 
353. 36r 

Norman, "Rambles in Yucatan," 
335. 340, 341 

Nott and Gliddon's " Types of Man- 
kind," 3, 5, 23, 34, 35, 503 

Orozco y Berra, " Geographia de 

las lenguas y Carta Ethnografica de 

Mexico," 262, 311 
Oviedo, "Natural Historia de las 

Indias," 153 
Oviedo y Valdes, " Hist. Gen. y 

Natural de las Indias," 268, 271, 

359. 413, 501 

Paz-Soldan (Mateo), " Geog. del 
Peru," 388, 391, 423 

Peet (Rev. S. D.), " The Military 
Architecture," 92 

American Antiquarian, 92, 161 

Perkins (G. H.), "Ancient Burial- 
Ground in S wanton, Vermont," 
114, 165, 174 

"General Remarks upon the 

Arch, of Vermont," 136, 250 

Pickett (A. J.), "History of Ala- 
bama," 189 

Pidgeon, "Ant. Researches," 85 

Piedr ahita, " Hist. Gen. de la Con- 
quista del Nuevo Reyno de Gra- 
nada, " 459 

Pimentel (Francesco), " Lenguas In- 
digenas de Mexico," 13 



INDEX. 



5 6. 



Potter (W. P.), "Arch. Remains in 
S. E. Missouri," 85, 95, 136, 151, 
171 

Prescott (W. H.), "Hist, of the 

Conquest of Peru," 61, 3S8, 412,458 
" Hist, of the Conquest of 

Mexico," 61. 262, 358 
Pritchard, " Natural History of 

Man," 6, 284 
" Proc, Boston Soc. of Nat. Hist.," 

533 

Prunieres (Dr.), " Bull. Soc. Anth.,' 
494 

Purchas, " His Pilgrimes," 270. 
Putnam (F. W.) "Arch. Expl. in 

Tenn.," 507 
" Bull, of the Essex Inst.," 200, 

244 

" Report, Peabody Museum," 74, 

94, 103, 115, 145, 176. 244, 487, 
497, 5oS 

Ramusio, " Navigationi et Viaggi," 
358 

Rath (C), " Revista do Instituto 
historico, geographico, ethnographi- 
co do Brazil," 464 

PvAU, "Arch. Coll. U. S. Nat. Mus.," 
171 

" Indian Pottery," 134, 243 

" North American Stone Im- 
plements " (" Smith. Cont."), 36 

"The Palenque Tablet," 324, 

379 

" Smith. Contributions," 168, 

171, 172 

Read, " Exploration of a Rock Shel- 
ter in Boston, Summit county, 
Ohio," 73 

" Rel. primera del Licenciado de On- 
degardo," 440 

Remsal (A. de), " Hist, de la Prov. 
de S. Vincente de Chyapa," 266 

Remy and Brenchley, " A Journey 
to Great Salt Lake City," 137, 249 

" Report, Bureau of Ethnology," 524 

" Report, Peabody Mus.," 477, 493, 
501, 512 

PvETZius, " Archives des Sciences Nat- 

urelles," 514 

" Elhnol. Schriften," 48S 

Reuss and Stubel, " The Necropolis 

of Ancon in Peru," 431 
" Rev. d'Anth.," 496 
" Revista Mexicana," 352 
" Revue des Questions Scientifiques," 

357 

PvEYNOLDS, " Aboriginal Soapstone 



Quarries in the District of Colum- 
bia," 161 

Rivero, " Hist, de Jalapa, Mexico," 
127 

Robertson, " Congres des American- 

istes," 196 

" Les Mound Builders," 516 

Ruiz .(Mariano), the estufas of the 

pueblos, 203 

Sahagun, " Hist. Gen. de las Cosas 
de Nueva Espaha," 271, 277, 278, 
293, 302, 308, 312, 315, 355, 358, 
507 

Salisbury, " Maya Arch.," 344 

" The Mayas, the Sources of 

their History," 344 

"Proc. Am. Antiq. Soc," 265 

San Paolo (Dr. Rath de), " Letter 
Addressed to the Anglo- Brazilian 
Times," 53 
Sartiges (Comte de), Rev. des Deux 

Mondes, 441 
Sartorius, "Soc. Mex. Geog. Bole- 
tin." 354 

Scherzer, "Ein Besuch bei den 
Ruinen von Quiriqua im Staate 
Guatemala," 375 

Schmidt, " Zur Urgeschichte Nord 
Amerika," 479 

Schmidt (Ulrich), account of Men- 
doza's expedition, 8 

Schobel, " Antiquites Ame'ricaines 
du Musee Ethncgraphique de Saint 
Petersbourg," 444 

" Un chap, de l'Arch. Am. Con- 
gres de Luxembourg," 371 

Schoolcraft, "Archives of Aborigi- 
nal Knowledge," 36, 70, 130, 164, 
165, 1S0, 241 

" Ancient Garden-Beds in Grand 

River valley (Michigan)," 181 

"Ethnological Researches Re- 
specting the Red Men of America," 
62 

Schumacher (Paul), " Researches on 
the Kjokkenmoddings of the Coast 
of Oregon and in the Santa Barbara 
Islands and Adjacent Mainland," 51 

" Rep., Peabody Museum," 137, 

171, 480 

Schweden, " Urgeschichte," 61 
Scoville (Dr. S.), Cincinnati Quar- 
terly Journal, 172 
Short, " North Americans of Antiq- 
uity," 34, 35, 36, 87, 92, 104, 106, 
177, 197, 306, 317, 335, 344. 347, 
484, 493 



$62 



PRE- HIS TORIC A M ERICA . 



SlCULUS (Diodorus), " Biblical His- 
tory," 60 
Silliman's Am. Journ. of Sci., 92 
Simpson (James), "Journal of a Mili- 
tary Reconnaissance from Santa Fe 
to the Navajo Country," 78, 204 
" Rep. to Sec. of War," 229, 234 
Sitgreaves, " Report of an Expedi- 
tion down the Zuni and Colorado 
Rivers," 226 
" Soc. Mex. Geog. Bol.," 361 
Soldi, " Les camees et les pierres 
gravees l'art au moyen age, l'art 
Khmer, les arts du Perou et du 
Mexique, l'art Egyptien, les arts in- 
dustriels, des musees du Trocadero, 
375 

Sosa (Gaspar Castanode), " Mem. del 
Descubrimiento del Reino de 
Leon," 142 

SOURY (J.), " Int. a 1' Hist, des Pro- 

. tistes de Haeckel," 517 

South all, " Recent Origin of Man," 
34, 35, 89, 192 

Sqlter, " Peru, Incidents of Travel 
and Exploration in the Land of the 
Incas," 387, 388, 393, 396, 399, 400, 
402, 407, 408, 411, 416, 418, 422, 
425.435. 5or, 502, 503. 509, 523. 

quoted by Nott and Gliddon, 5 

" Smithsonian Contrib. to 

Knowledge," 131 

" Nicaragua," 513 

Squier and Davis, " Ancient Monu- 
ments of the Mississippi Valley," 
81, 100, 104, 107, 112, 137, 165, 
166, 1S5, 190, 4S9 . 

Stephens, " Incidents of Travel in 
Yucatan," 82, 159, 265, 318, 319, 
324, 33o, 332, 333, 340, 34L 343, 
344, 347, 349 

Stephens and Catherwood, "Inci- 
dents of Travel in Central Amer- 
ica," 318, 375 

"Views of Ancient Monuments 

in Central America, Chiapas, and 
Yucatan," 330 

Strabo, " Geography," 60, 514 

Strachey, " Historie of Travaile into 
Virginia Britannia," 193 

Stronck. " Repertoire Chronologique 
de 1' Hist, des Mound Builders," 
Cong, des Americ, 197 

Sumner (Prof. W. G.), North Ameri- 
can. Review, 521 

Swallow (Prof.), " Report, Peabody 
Mus.," 104, 138, 482 



Swineford, " Review of the Mineral 
Resources of Lake Superior," 1876 
178 

St. Jerome, " Hier. Opera," 60 

Tenochtitlan (City of Mexico), 

foundation of, 11 
Ternaux Compans, " Notice Hist. 

sur la Guyane Francaise," to, 13S 
Tezozomoc (F. de Alvaredo), 

" Chron. Mexicana," 2S5, 287, 291, 

308, 309 

" Hist. Mex.," 358 

Thevenot, "Relation de Divers 

Voyages Curieux," 254 
Thurman " Crania Britannica," 514 
Topinard, " Bull. Soc. Anth.," 490 

in Rev. d'Anth., 3 

Torquemada, " Mon. Indiana," 264,. 

277, 279, 282, 285, 288, 290, 291, 

297, 300, 302, 309, 310, 312, 313, 

35 8 , 36o, 36r, 364, 380 
" Ties relacions de Antiguedades- 

Peruanas publicalas el Ministerio 

de Fomento," Madrid; 1879, 388 
Troisieme Cong, des Americanistes, 

507 

Tylor, " Anahuac," 350, 352, 358 

Uhlman (Max), " Handbuch der ges- 
amten .Egyptischen Alterthum- 
skunde," 321 

Uricochoza, "Mem. sobre las An- 
tiguedades Neo-Granadinas," 459 

Vaca (Cabeca de), " Quarta Rela- 
cion," 200 

Valentine, - ' The Katunes of Maya 
History," 261 

" Velacao verdadeira dos trabal- 
hos que ho gobernador don Fer- 
nando de Soto et certos fidalgos 
Portugesos passaraono descobri- 
miento da provincia da Florida," 80 

Venegas, " Noticia de la California y 
de su Conquista," 78 

Vetancurt, " Teatro Mexicano," 
284, 297, 314 

" Cronica," 239 

Veytia, " Hist. ant. de Mejico," 261, 
277, 282, 283, 2S5, 288, 302, 308^ 
364, 380 

Viollet le Due, 365 

Vimont (Barth. de), " Relation," 62 

Vogt (C), " Squelette humain associe 
aux glyptodontes," 477 

Von Duben (Baron), " Cong, pre'h. dc 
Copenhague," 494 



INDEX. 



563 



Voy, " Relics of the Stone Age in Cal- 
ifornia," 39 

Waitz (Dr. T.), "Anthropologic der 

Naturvolker," 466 
Waldeck, "Voy. arch, et pittoresque 

dans la province du Yucatan,." 318, 

319, 320, 324, 335, 338. 
Warden, " Recherches sur les Ant. 

de l'Am. du Nord. Ant. Mex.," 360 
West (E. P.), Western Review, 11S 
Whipple, " Report and Explorations 

near the 35th Parallel," 226 
Whipple, Ewbank, and Turner, 

" Report upon the Indian Tribes," 

224 

White, " On Artificial Shell-Heaps of 
Fresh-Water Mollusks," 56 

Whitney, "Auriferous Gravels," 533, 
534, 535- 

Whittlesey (Col.), "Age of Skulls 
found near Louisville, Kentucky,"74 

" Ancient Mining on the Shores 

of Lake Superior," 178 

" The Great Mound on the 

Etowah River," 106 

" Rep. Am. Ass.," 250 

" On the Weapons and Character 

of the Mound Builders," gi 

Wiener, (Chas.), " Estudos sobre los 
sambaquis do sul do Brazil," 53 

"Perou et Bolivie," 3S8, 390, 

406, 431, 441, 443 

Wilkes, " U. S. Exploring Expedi- 
tion," 393 

Wilson, "Prehistoric Man," 34, 490, 
503, 504, 511 

Wyman (Jeffries), "Fresh-Water Shell- 
Heaps of the St. John's River," 57 

" Human Remains in the Shell- 
Heaps of the St. John's River (East 
Florida) cannibalism," 58. 

" Rep., Am. Assoc.," 487 

" Report, Peabody Museum," 49, 

61, 64, 67, 487, 491, 493, 509 

Xeres (F.), " Rel. de la Conq. du 
Perou," 391 

Yates (Dr.), "Smithsonian Report," 
51 

Zamora, "Hist, de la Prow del 
Nuevo Reino de Granada," 465 

Zehallos (Dr.) Rev. d' Anthropologic, 
84 

' ' Un Tumulus prehistorique 

de Buenos Ayres," 54 



Zurate, " Hist, del Descubrimiento 
y Conquista del Peru," 422 

Zurita (A. de), "Rapport sur les 
differentes classes de chefs de la 
Nouvelle Espagne," 315 



Red River Mound, platycnemic tibiae 

from 493. 
Skulls from 485, 487 

Rhinoceros tichorinus, 15 
R. etruscus, 15 

Rio Carcarana (Buenos Ayres), human 

bones and those of extinct animals 

on the borders of, 28 
Rio das Trombettas (or Orixamena), 

fragments of pottery on, 473 
Rio de Chelly, cliff houses along, 218 
Rio de la Plata, paraderos in region 

of, 54 

Rio Doce (Brazil), drawings on bank 

of, 469, 470 
Rio Frias, paraderos of the, 54 
Rio Juchipila, hatchet from the, 22 
Rio Lujan, paraderos of the, 54 
Rio Mancos, ancient ruins along, 208, 

210 

Rio Marco-Diaz, paraderos of the, 54 
Rio Norzas (Durango, Mexico), mum- 
mies from cave in valley of, 69 
Rio Salado, ruins of the, 224 
Rio Verde, ruins of the, 224 
Roads of Peru, 421 
Root River, mounds on, 87 

Sabula (Iowa), shell-heaps, 56 

Salt Cave (Kentucky), discoveries in, 

Sambaquis in Brazil, 53, 55 ; their 
size, 53, 54 

at Taperinha, 56 

Sandy-Woods settlement (Missouri), 
mounds at, 95 

pottery at, 136 

San Pablo (California), shell-heap, 50 

Santa Catalina (island of), ancient soap- 
stone quarry on, 51 

skulls in the shell-heaps of, 481 

Santa Catherina, complexion of the 
inhabitants of the island of, in the 
16th century, 3 

Santa Lucia Cosumhualpa, ruins at, 
371 

Santa Rosa, shell-heap, 48 

Santarem (province of Para), frag- 
ments of pottery near, 473 

Santiago-Tlatelolcoli, resemblance of 
skulls from, to those of the Mound 
Builders, 500 



564 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



Saratoga (New York), discoveries at 

High Rock Spring, 74 
Sarcophagi near Trenton, Missouri, 

114 

in Tennessee mounds, 115 

Scandinavian implements, their re- 
semblance to those from the islands 
of the Susquehanna, 21 
Scioto skull from Chillicothe, 489 
Sculptures among the Mound Builders, 

see under ' ' Pottery," etc. 
Seltzertown, mound at, 103 
Serpent in American mythology, 126, 
127 

Shaw's Flat (Cal.), ornaments of calc- 

spar and granite mortar from, 39 
Shell-heaps, see " Kitchen-middens " 

of Oregon and California, skulls 

in, 480 

list of species found in shell- 
heaps of Maine and Massachusetts, 
535 ; in Iowa, 536 

Shelter Cave, near Elyria, (Lorain Co., 
Ohio), 71 

Shell ornaments, see " Ornaments" 

Short's Cave (Kentucky), mummy in, 76 

Sinnamari River (Guiana), polished 
stone hatchets from the banks of, 27 

Silver Spring (Florida), shell-heap, 57 

its age, 67 

Skulls, table of capacity of Mound 

Builders', 490 ; of those of modern 

races (Topinard's), 491 
Small-pox, its destructive effect on 

the Indians, 506 
Smilodon, found fossil in Brazil by 

Lund, 26 

Sonora (Cal.), stone implements near, 
39 

Soto, island of, 410 

Spaniards, discoveries and conquests 
by, 1, 2, 4, 7, 8 

Sparta (Tennessee), human remains 
enclosed in rush baskets near, 114 

Squirrel, veneration of the, in Van- 
couver's Island, 8 

St. Acheul, resemblance of its paleo- 
lithic implements to those of the 
Delaware valley, 20 

St. Andrews (Cal.), stone mortars 
from, 39 

St. Louis (Missouri), mounds near, 86 
Stimpson's mound skull, comparison 

with the Neanderthal skull, 483 
Strombtis gigas, 172 
Suguassu River (Brazil), sambaquis 

with human relics on banks of, 53 
Susquehanna River cave, 72 



Swanton (Vermont), copper pipe-stems 
from, 165 

copper tubes in mounds at, 166 

stone ornaments from, 174 

Swastika, the sacred sign of the Ar- 
yans, on the Pemberton hammer, 
22, 24 

Syphilis, is it native to America? 507 ; 
among the Mound Builders, 507 

Tabasco, battles near the mouth of the 
river, 2 

Table Mountain (Cal.), stone mortars 

from, 39 

Tacuba, resemblance of skulls from, 
to those of the Mound Builders, 

500 

Tahiti, cannibalism at, 63 
Taperinha, discoveries of pottery at, 
472 

sambaquis at, 56 

Tchungkee, game of, 190 

Techichis, the dog of Mexico, 3 

Tecuhtli, initiation of the, 315 

Tehuantepec, recent discovery of a 
sepulchre at, 369 

pyramids near, 355 

Tehuelche (Patagonia), 10 

skulls from Patagonia cemeteries 

presenting marked deformation, 511 

Tennessee, caves as burial-places, 69 

mounds in, 91 

mounds at Greenwood, 94 

mounds in the valley of the 

Cumberland, 106 

adobe altar in, 107 

human remains in rush baskets 

near Sparta. 114; nearCairo, 114 

excavations near Nashville, 115 

sepulchral mounds near Nash- 
ville, 115 

vase in child's grave, 145 

vase with handles from sepul- 
chral mound, 147 

pottery in sepulchral mounds, 

151 . 

pipe from sepulchral mound, 152 

" bear "-shaped vase from, 154 

stone images in the mounds, of 

167 

copper ornaments from mounds 

of, 172 

shell ornament from, 173 

copper cross in grave at Zolli- 

coffer Hill, 176, 177 
seven-foot skeleton from stone 

grave, 496 
cross from mound in, 176 



INDEX. 



565 



Tenochtitlan, founding of, 285 
Tepanecs (the), 11 
Tierra del Fuego, shell-heaps, 47 
cannibalism amongst the tribes 

of, 62, 63 
Teul, hatchet from near, 22 

skull from, 499 

Tezcuans (the), 281 

Tezcuco, 288, 360 

Tiaguanaco, ruins of, 400 

Tiger, veneration of the, in Honduras, 

7 

Tijuco (Brazil), inscription on rocks 
of, 470 

Tin, amongst the Mexicans, 381 

Tilicaca, island in Lake Titicaca, the 
sacred island of the Peruvians, 406 ; 
the birthplace of Manco-Capac and 
CEllo, 407 ; ruins on, 407 ; build- 
ings erected by Tupac-Tupanqui, 
the eleventh Inca, 408 

Titicaca Lake, chulpas near, 426 ; 
near Tiuhuani, 426 

Tiuhuani (Peru), chulpas near, 426 

Tolan or Tula, the capital of the 
Toltecs, 12 

Toltecs, the, 12, 271 ; conquered Ana- 
huac about the sixth century of our 
era, 271 ; Quetzacoatl, 274 ; re- 
ligious wars, 274 ; characteristics of 
the Toltecs, 275 ; their knowledge 
of the useful arts, 276 ; their com- 
merce, 276 

their jewelry and ornaments, 

276 ; their weapons and armor, 
277 ; cremation practised among the 
higher classes, but the dead of the 
common people were buried, 277 ; 
human sacrifices, 277 ; govern- 
ment, 27S ; marriage custom, 278 

traditions of the magnificence of 

their palaces, 278 ; conquered by 
the Chichimecs, 283 

Toolesborough (Iowa), alleged South 
American shell in mound at, 113 

Topinard (Dr.), Table showing ca- 
pacity of skulls of modern races, 
491 

perforation of the humerus as 

a racial characteristic, 495 

Trenton (N. J.), palaeolithic imple- 
ments in the drift near, 20 

Trepanned skulls from Yucay valley 
(Peru), 509 ; from Sable and Red 
River mounds and from mounds in 
Michigan, 510 ; trepanning only 
practised on adult males, 510; tre- 
panned skulls in Europe, 510 



Troano manuscript, 379 

Tula, ruins of, 355 

Tunga (Peru), ruins near, 461 

Tupi, see " Guarani " 

Tupis, the, inhabit Brazil, 9 

Turtle mound, a shell-heap near 

Smyrna, 4S 
Tzomes, the dog of Yucatan, 3 

United States of Colombia, the an- 
cient state of Cundinamarca and 
the home of the Chibchas, 459 

Ursus Americantis, 4 

U?szis ferox (grizzly bear), 4 

Uruguay, inscriptions of, not attributa- 
ble to the Guaranis, 471 

weapons and implements, 475 

Utah, mounds in, 83 

sepulchral mounds in, 116 

pottery in sepulchral mounds, 

ancient agricultural implements, 

171 . 

discovery of corn in a mound of, 

183 

Uxmal, ruins of, 333, 334 

Vancouver Island, veneration of the 

squirrel in, 8 

shell-heaps, 52 

mounds in, S3 

Veneration of animals, 7 
Vermont, ancient pottery in, 136 

large vases from, 155 

copper pipe stems from Swanton, 

165 

stone ornament from Swanton, 

174 

Vera Cruz, deformed statuettes from, 
512 

Vilcabamba, megaliths of, 424 
Virginia, caves as burial-places, 69 

sepulchral mound at Grave Creek, 

116 

pipe from, 165 

shell ornaments from Grave 

Creek mounds, 172 

shell pin from Ely mound, 174 

Votan, legend concerning, 264 

Washington Territory, mounds near 
Olympia, 106 

"Weapons of the aborigines, 16 ; (see 
" Weapons of the Mound Builders ") 

Weapons of the Mound Builders, 169 ; 
serpentine axes from Ohio, 169, 
170 ; serpentine implement from 
Tennessee, 170; the Mahquahwitl, 



566 



PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. 



170 ; flint instrument from New- 
Jersey, 171 

Weapons of Mound Builders, copper 
hatchet at Swanton, 175 ; knife and 
lance point in Wisconsin, 175, 176; 
sharp blade at Joliet (Illinois), 175 ; 
knife at Fort Wayne (Indiana), 175; 
copper axes in Iowa, 177 

Western mound, skull from, 4S5 

Wisconsin, mounds in, 82 

ruins of Aztalan, on Rock River, 

92 

methods of burial among the 

Mound Builders, 114 
mounds on the Kickapoo River, 

108 

■ chief centre of mounds repre- 
senting animals, 123 

■ animal-shaped mounds at Pewau- 

kee, 123 



Wisconsin, animal-shaped mounds in, 
126 

cross-shaped mounds in, .129 

copper weapons from, 175, 176 

Wyoming, stone implements at Cow's 
Creek, 40 

Xochicalco, 352 

Xulos, the dog of Nicaragua, 3 

Yellowstone River, mound city on, 186 
Yucatan, mounds in, 82 

the cross in the native temples of, 

176 (see also " Central America "). 

Zamna, the god, 348 

Zapotecs the, 362 ; language, 363 ; 

religious rites, 363 ; government, 

363 : Mitla, 364. 
Zayi, ruins at, 340 



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